I had an amazing 48 hours at Podfest, the definitive conference for podcasters, and wanted to share with you what I learned as the takeaways about AI are universal and can be applied to any marketing you do.You’re in for a treasure chest of insights on how AI is not just a tech trend but a pivotal player in content marketing, audience engagement, and the profound connection we forge through the intimacy of voice. Imagine converting your every word into captivating show notes, automating your social media posts to resonate with your followers, and even cloning voices that sound strikingly human - all this and more, while you focus on what really matters: your listeners.Dive into the technological marvels that are redefining content creation. AI is now a trusted co-pilot in the podcast universe, creating content that rivals the most creative of minds. In this episode, discover the plethora of AI tools that can elevate your podcasting from voice-to-text transcription to seamless editing, and how they can help you repurpose content across platforms. With resources like Perplexity for nuanced searches and Opus Clip for crafting engaging video snippets, your podcast’s potential reaches new horizons. We’ll explore how these innovations can transform your interviews into eBooks and more, proving that your content can truly be limitless.But that’s not all. Join us as we delve into the nuts and bolts of automating podcast interviews and content creation. Learn how Google Forms and Zapier can streamline your workflow, and how ChatGPT can craft captivating content that speaks directly to your audience’s needs. Industry professionals like Mark Savant show how a simple form response can turn into a rich, SEO-friendly draft in no time. By the end of this episode, you'll be armed with practical tips and a newfound appreciation for how AI can not only refine your podcasting journey but propel your digital business into new realms of success.AI TOOLS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEAudioPen Descript [get started for free]PodcastleCastmagic [try for free]Cohost AI (Buzzsprout) [$20 off]AudiotypeCapshoElevenLabs [get started for free]Stampede SocialGrouptrack CRMPerplexityOpusClip [get started for freeEPISODE SPONSORClick here for the special SocialBee deal:30-day extended trial on the PRO plan1-on-1 support to get started with the platform30-day money-back guaranteeOr go here: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbeeLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Uncover the secrets to capturing those anonymous website visitors that seem to vanish without a trace! Joined by the insightful Roy Harmon, CMO of Leadpost, we dive into the world of digital marketing, offering you the tools and strategies necessary to transform the invisible into leads. We'll go deep into Roy's expertise on leveraging innovative software to identify and engage with the majority of website visitors who remain enigmatic. Together, we'll guide you through the process of nurturing these potential leads with a personalized touch, equipping you with the strategies to elevate your sales opportunities.Finally, for agencies looking to sharpen their edge, we unveil Leadpost's special offer that promises to transform the way you manage and market leads. Learn how to harness the power of technology to communicate with potential customers who visit your website and explore the potential rewards of investing in tools that could significantly boost your ROI. Whether you're a digital marketing veteran or a newcomer eager to make your mark, this episode is packed with insights set to ignite your business strategy.GUEST LINKSLeadPostRoy Harmon on LinkedInOTHER LINKS21 X / Twitter User Statistics for 2024 to Guide Your Marketing StrategySocialBeeStart Using Tweet Hunter for free here: https://nealschaffer.com/tweethunterLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Embark on a journey through the digital marketing landscape as I dissect the metrics that mattered most in my business last year, setting the stage for what lies ahead. Discover the unexpected twists of social media traffic, with LinkedIn overtaking Facebook and Twitter falling behind, and why search remains king.Transformation is at the heart of success, and this episode is a testament to that. I'll share how my YouTube channel's subscriber count skyrocketed, thanks to a potent mix of content creation and smart promotion. But there's more: the rise in email traffic, the consistent income from my roles as a fractional CMO and speaker, and the 400% surge in affiliate marketing revenue all paint a picture of a multifaceted growth strategy. Lastly, I'll break down the conversion magic—how despite the ebb and flow of social media traffic, YouTube emerged as a powerhouse for conversions. Delving into the health of my newsletter and the stability of my digital mastermind community, you'll get a front-row seat to the thought process behind my diverse income streams. And with expanded teaching gigs at UCLA Extension, the blueprint for educational influence in digital marketing becomes clearer. So tune in, as this episode is not just a reflection but a blueprint for your own digital marketing success in 2024 and beyond.Get a free 14-day trial of SocialPilot here: https://nealschaffer.com/socialpilotLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Embrace the power of knowledge as we unravel the complexities of influencer marketing with the astute guidance of "The Influencer Attorney" Bobby Robinson. This episode is a must-listen for anyone vested in the digital space, from influencers crafting their brand to businesses forging impactful partnerships. Learn the intricacies of FTC guidelines and why they're not just fine print but a foundation for your online endeavors.Navigating the digital landscape, we've shifted our gaze towards the crucial mergers of content creation and legal savvy. Delving into the world of influencer agreements with Bobby, we illuminate the dos and don'ts of content ownership, the dynamics of exclusivity clauses, and the pivotal art of negotiation. Moreover, we underscore the immense value of education - not merely as a safeguard but as a tool empowering your journey through the maze of FTC compliance, ensuring transparency reigns supreme in your collaborations.Capping off, we present a compelling narrative on why influencers should view their craft as a legitimate business, emphasizing the significance of intellectual property rights and the strategic move towards establishing an LLC. Highlighting LinkedIn's freshest 'Thought Leader' ad format, we probe into the evolving nature of endorsements and their legal implications. Join us for a comprehensive exploration that will equip you with the wisdom to harness your influence, protect your assets, and shine in the digital marketplace.GUEST LINKSThe Influencer AttorneyConnect with Bobby on LinkedInOTHER LINKSThe Top 50 Video Marketing Statistics for 2024Tweet HunterGet a free 14-day trial of SocialPilot here: https://nealschaffer.com/socialpilotLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Happy New Year, digital marketers and go-getters! The time is ripe for a mindset revolution, and I'm here to guide you through it. Imagine embracing AI in your marketing strategy while keeping that irreplaceable human essence alive and at the forefront. That's exactly the journey we're embarking on in this latest episode of the Digital Marketing Coach podcast. From resetting our digital tactics to welcoming a fresh perspective on content creation, you're invited to explore the transformative power of AI without losing your brand's authentic voice—think 'AI on the inside, human on the outside.' Plus, I've got a special invite for those keen to join the launch team of my upcoming book.As we leap into the new year, let's unlock the full potential of tools like Descript, our AI Tool of the Week, and adapt to the changing demands of digital culture with insights like our Stat of the Week. But it's not just about the tools; it's about the wisdom to use them without overshadowing our expertise. Remember, if you're ever in need of a digital marketing compass, the digital first group coaching membership community, alongside a vast archive of podcast content and blog posts at neilshaffer.com, stands ready to empower your journey. Let's make sure your marketing strategies resonate with precision and a touch of humanity. Join me, Neal Schaffer, and let's amplify your digital marketing game together.LINKS MENTIONEDInstagram StatisticsDescriptGet a free 14-day trial of SocialPilot here: https://nealschaffer.com/socialpilotLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ready to discover the secret ingredient for lasting brand success? This episode, we're elbow-deep in the captivating world of brand love with our esteemed guest, Dr. Aaron Ahuvia. As one of the foremost experts on the subject, Dr. Ahuvia peels back the layers, revealing brand love as a potent emotion that you can master using psychology and neuroscience.Forget about those tired marketing buzzwords, we're talking about strategies that can set your brand apart in a crowded field. We'll navigate the terrain of the digital world, exploring how it opens up a new frontier for cultivating brand love. We'll touch on the importance of humanizing your brand, making it an integral part of your customer's identity. We're also taking cues from successful brands like Patagonia and Airbnb, unravelling how they've mastered the art of storytelling, authenticity, and alignment with customer values to foster deep emotional connections.Stay tuned and you'll walk away not just understanding the concept of brand love, but armed with practical tips on how to cultivate it. From discussing the potential of brand love to impact long-term success to examining the role of digital marketing in achieving it, this episode promises to be a treasure trove of insights. Plus, be sure to keep listening for an exciting opportunity that could see you nabbing a one-on-one coaching call. Join us in this journey deep into the heart of brand love, and let's transform the way you connect with your customers.Guest LinksBuy The Things We Love: How Our Passions Connect Us and Make Us Who We Are on Amazon (affiliate)Dr. Ahuvia's WebsiteConnect with Dr. Ahuvia on LinkedInLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ever experienced a sudden drop in website traffic due to Google algorithm updates? You're not alone. I, Neal Schaffer, was right there with you, witnessing a decline in my site's traffic. Let's embark together on this episode of the Digital Marketing Coach, as we navigate the tumultuous sea of SEO changes brought about by the recent Google algorithm update. We'll venture deeper into how this has impacted user experiences, particularly concerning ads and pop-ups. Brace yourself for some philosophical pondering about your website's content, and whether search engines are here to stay or destined to fade into oblivion.Get ready to redefine your understanding of SEO, as we unveil the seismic shifts reverberating across the industry and their implications for bloggers and businesses. Learn from my own wake-up call about the paramount importance of writing for humans above search engines, and prepare to question the ideal length for your content pieces. Discover how affiliate marketing influences rankings and why I opted to purge affiliate links from most of my posts. We'll unpack how Google's search results are evolving, with individual tools now trumping listicle posts. Join us for this enlightening discourse on the ever-changing digital landscape, and arm yourself with crucial insights to stay ahead in the game.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ever wanted to know how AI is revolutionizing the ecommerce marketing landscape? Or perhaps you're curious about how a successful SEO strategy can make a world of difference to your ecommerce store? Buckle up, because ecommerce aficionado, Katrina McKinnon, is here to walk you through these intriguing topics and more!We kick off with a whirlwind tour of AI's transformative impact on ecommerce marketing. From enhancing product images to mining product reviews for insights, Katrina shares her first-hand experiences and profound insights on the subject. However, it's not all robots and algorithms. We stress the importance of maintaining a human touch in content creation, because, in the end, we're all human, and we like to buy from other humans. Katrina takes us through the art of creating engaging content and discusses Google's new policy on misrepresentation. Plus, we touch upon the power of accessories and how selling them alongside a main product can be a game-changer.Of course, we can't talk about ecommerce marketing without delving into the rabbit hole of SEO. Katrina highlights some key mistakes businesses often make and why it's crucial to start with the product itself. We also underline the importance of creative content and the immense potential platforms like Reddit hold for research. Wrapping up things, we give a shout-out to the power of podcasting itself (meta, isn't it?) and how it can help you reach a broader audience. So, whether you're an ecommerce newbie or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with insightful tips and tricks that'll help you stay ahead of the curve. Tune in and don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts!Guest LinksCopySmithsKatrina McKinnon on LinkedInLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What if I told you that a 1923 publication could hold the secret to your success in modern digital marketing? Today's episode opens a time capsule, dusting off the wisdom from Claude C Hopkins' "Scientific Advertising." Here, I marvel at Hopkins' foresight in scientifically measuring the effectiveness of newspaper ads and coupons - a century ago! I draw parallels to today's digital marketing landscape and underscore the importance of relentless testing and measurement in your marketing strategies.Next, I dive into the realm of psychology and its connection to marketing - a concept as old as advertising itself. In a world increasingly centered around personal connection, I explore the power of curiosity, the perception of price, and the role of personal branding. I also examine the importance of user-generated content, decoding the age-old understanding of human nature and its efficacy in designing marketing strategies. I'll share insights on using lead magnets effectively and the potency of giving samples to lure prospects.Finally, I delve into the significance of data and visuals in advertising. I unravel the strategic use of data, reminding you that specific facts and numbers are more persuasive than vague promises. I also stress the visual aspects of your ads, guiding you on selecting the right images to resonate with your audience. As I navigate through these timeless principles, I emphasize a culture of continuous testing and experimentation in marketing. So, tune in, learn from history, and let's elevate your digital marketing strategies together.Scientific Advertising on AmazonDownload Dash Hudson's Guide to 2024 Social Media Trends and get a free 15-day trial of Dash Hudson here: https://dashhudson.com/podcastLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Set your reminders and secure your earbuds as we bring you face-to-face with the future of social media marketing! Our confab with Kate Archibald, the trailblazing CMO of Dash Hudson, takes an insightful dive into the trends shaping the social media landscape for 2024. With her fascinating transition from the beauty industry to Mar-Tec, Kate unravels her unique insights on the crossroads of customer experience and decision-making. We tap into Dash Hudson's secret sauce of success - a triad of usability, data, and customer service - and how they pioneer innovation to stay on top in the industry. Fasten your seat belts as we shift gears in the second half, steering towards the booming world of short-form video. Kate deciphers how brands can maneuver their content strategy to harness the raw power of this new social entertainment phenomenon. We delve into the pivotal role played by platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts, and the intriguing link between engagement rates and sales. Hear straight from Kate as she shares pearls of wisdom on creating content that resonates and authentically responding to audience engagement. So gear up to turbocharge your social media game with our enlightening conversation!Make sure you download the Dash Hudson report that we discuss during this interview here: https://dashhudson.com/podcastGUEST LINKSGet a 14-day free trial of Dash HudsonConnect with Kate on LinkedInLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Unleash your potential and soar to new heights in the world of entrepreneurship, salesmanship, and marketing, as we unravel the secret weapon - personal branding. We're not just spouting theory here; we're diving headfirst into the 15 key elements of a personal brand, running the gamut from the Four C's to the Five P's, and even the less heard of Three A's. We'll also shed light on the silent mover and shaker in any organization - internal employer branding - and its surprising connection with personal branding.We're not stopping there. Together, we'll dissect various models of personal branding, and discover how you can make them work for you, whether you're an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer. Ever heard of the three A's of altruism? How about the eight laws as proposed by some of the leading experts in this field? We'll delve into all that and more, the importance of purpose, brand promise, perspective and even share our own take on what constitutes the core elements of a personal brand.And the cherry on top? We're taking you behind the curtain of some of the biggest brands out there, like Wendy's edgy social media persona, Dove's celebration of real beauty, and Patagonia's love for the planet. We'll examine how they use their brand voice to differentiate themselves and build trust. Then, we'll turn the spotlight on you to help you build your personal brand, starting with visibility and digital presence. We'll explore various platforms and types of content you can use to engage your audience and build a community around your brand. And of course, we won't leave you hanging - we'll provide homework and resources to help you build your personal brand framework. So gear up and let's embark on this exciting journey of personal branding together.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Prepare to be captivated as we delve into the transformative world of automated webinars with our distinguished guest, Melissa Kwan, the CEO and founder of eWebinar. We're taking you on a deep dive into the exciting realm of digital marketing, exploring how the power of webinars, both live and automated, can revolutionize your business strategy.Ever wondered why webinars hold such a powerful sway in marketing? Our conversation with Melissa explores the psychology behind their effectiveness and unveils the game-changing potential of repurposing content to engage with diverse consumers. We talk about the art of maintaining customer-centricity even in automated webinars, and how auto-responders and chats can ensure seamless customer experiences. From choosing the right platform to scripting for maximum engagement, we leave no stone unturned. Melissa shares insightful tips on promoting automated webinars, the dos and don'ts of creating them, and how they can be harnessed to generate leads and enhance your company's reach. Her tips on leveraging authenticity to create impactful webinars are worth their weight in gold. Brace yourselves to reimagine your digital marketing strategy and give your business the boost it needs.Guest LinksCheck Out eWebinarConnect with Melissa on LinkedInLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ever wondered how to level up your YouTube content and garner millions of views? This episode is your guide to mastering the YouTube game, courtesy of my report from attending the recent VidSummit 2023 - the mecca for video marketers and video content creators. Together, we'll unlock the following insights: Popular YouTuber Preston Plays, who reveals his strategy of treating content creation as a serious business. He underscores the power of process standardization, freeing up precious time for creativity. Another popular YouTuber, Kimbyrleigha, the pivot queen, divulges how she shifted her channel focus from PopSockets to true crime, drawing in her target avatar. The AI revolution in video production isn't far behind, with popular YouTuber Kwebbelkop sharing a detailed roadmap of his proprietary AI video tool. This tool has the potential to make content creation 200% cheaper and 12,000% faster. We also dive into YouTube's exciting new AI tools that promise to ease video creation, transforming the landscape for creators, from YouTube's creator liaison Rene Richie.Finally, we unravel the secrets of marketing strategies and YouTube growth. Discover how a YouTube-based e-commerce startup hit the nail on the head with its launch strategy. There's no missing out on our discussion of effective thumbnails and intros, and the role of AI in reshaping content creation. Learn how understanding your audience and optimizing for viewer engagement can skyrocket your channel's success. From data and metrics to success stories, there's a treasure trove of insights waiting for you. So don't wait, tune in and elevate your YouTube journey with us.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ever dreamt of having a magnetic pull on your ideal customers while at the same time artfully warding off those who aren’t a fitting match? That’s precisely what this enlightening episode is all about! We're joined by Martin Huntbach and Lyndsay Cambridge, the incredible minds behind the game-changing book and strategy entitled Content Fortress. They let us in on their remarkable journey - from web designers to content marketing strategists - and how they've used content to filter out clients who may not align with their business goals.Martin and Lyndsay reveal their secret sauce to creating content that not just answers the hard questions, but also sets boundaries and establishes trust. Our conversation dives into the benefits of incorporating structure and process in content creation and how it can make businesses more enjoyable and trustworthy. We also uncover the advantages of educating customers through content, which can dramatically reduce time spent on sales calls while boosting conversion rates.But that's not all! We plunge into the captivating world of AI and how it can add a unique essence to your content strategy. From its role in content creation and repurposing to its challenges in delivering original content, we leave no stone unturned! So, tune in and let Martin and Lyndsay guide you through the process of constructing a content fortress that aligns perfectly with your business vision. You're about to redefine your content marketing strategy in ways you never imagined!Guest LinksBuy Content Fortress on AmazonLearn More About Content FortressJammy DigitalLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Every company should be investing in marketing automation regardless of industry. But even if you are investing, are you really taking the fullest advantage of it?As I proceed in writing my dedicated chapter on marketing automation for my upcoming 5th book, I wanted to share with you my thoughts on the power of marketing automation for your business and help you see it in a more strategic manner.This episode is all about unpacking the myths surrounding marketing automation and revealing its true potential to enhance customer relationships and increase profits. I'll share insights on how to maximize its potential. Using data from customer life cycle stages, preferences, and locations, I'll guide you in crafting personalized, targeted emails that deliver value to your customers. Discover strategies to increase revenue, meet customer expectations, and positively influence retention. Listen in to understand the power of preference and location targeting, and how to re-engage inactive subscribers. This episode is a must-listen for marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, or business owners looking to make the most of marketing automation.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ready to unlock the mysteries of maximizing your digital marketing ROI? Strap in as we bring you an exclusive interview with Christopher Roberts, the General Manager of Cloud Control Media. Christopher lifts the curtain on the agency's proprietary technology and the remarkable role of artificial intelligence in tracking data, all designed to turbo-boost your ROI. Don't miss out on learning how to create an end-to-end tracking system and the wealth of resources Christopher shares to gain a comprehensive understanding of AI's power.Ever asked yourself how effective your digital content, influencer, or social media marketing is? We explore this question with Christopher, who brings a treasure trove of experience from working on pioneering websites to owning and operating a call center. We venture into how tracking leads, revenues, and conversions can inform your marketing strategies and the indispensable role of technology in doing so. Get ready to discover the secrets of measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing.We are not stopping at theories. Christopher Roberts throws the spotlight on real-life applications of AI in marketing. Hear the compelling tale of a massive team's effort to build an in-house system to measure the effectiveness of digital content, influence, and ad campaigns. Understand how AI algorithms can draw a roadmap for digital marketing, leaving room for human input to adjust and optimize the plan. Experience the thrill of creating a sales feedback loop that gives clients a competitive edge. This episode is brimming with takeaways you wouldn't want to miss!Guest LinksCloud Control MediaConnect with Christopher Roberts on LinkedIn Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This episode is another preview of content that will be included in my upcoming book.Two episodes ago I requested that you rethink your social media marketing with the role of user-generated content in mind.This episode I want you to rethink the role that email marketing can have in developing communication pathways and ultimately relationships of business value.Ever thought about the untapped power of email marketing? Buckle up, because in this episode, we're blowing the lid off the incredible potency that rests in your inbox. That's right, email marketing isn't just alive and kicking; it's a heavy hitter, 40 times more potent in snagging you new customers than social media.We're not just talking about mere promotional tools. We're diving into relationship-building resources. How, you ask? By focusing on consistent communication, lead magnets, content creation, and the art of nurturing the customer journey. The cherry on top? An overview of welcome emails and lead nurture sequences that will leave you awestruck: a whopping 80% open rate and 320% more revenue! But we don't just wow you with figures; we provide you with the hands-on tools to conjure up the perfect welcome email and lead nurture sequences. But the episode doesn't stop there. We also delve into promotional emails - not just as a sales tool, but as a powerful relationship builder. From boosting brand awareness to generating demand and showcasing your products or services, we cover it all. We also discuss the role of time-bound discount and event emails, and how they can up your customer interaction game. Finally, we reveal how you can make each email experience unique for your customers by leveraging special occasions. So, gear up for a ride that takes email marketing to a whole new level. Let's hit it!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ever wished you could tap into the brilliant mind of an author, successful company founder, and  and senior manager at a cool company like Adobe? Meet today's guest Andy Lambert,  author of Social 3.0. I was lucky to have Andy share his experiences and insights on B2B growth with me. Andy schooled us on how to shift our mindset to use social media for growth and the importance of consistent, positive actions in the B2B industry. He gave us an intimate look into launching a social media scheduling platform and how educational content was crucial in generating interest.Andy didn't hold back on the secrets of his trade. He elaborated on how understanding your customer base's needs can power your business objectives and fuel your content marketing strategy. He emphasized the importance of aligning sales and marketing, and how this harmony could be the key to success for any B2B organization. We also touched on 'dark social' and its role in driving content marketing success, a concept that will have you rethinking your strategy.In the final part of our discussion, Andy really drove home the value of educational content and how it should be prioritized in budgets. He made a compelling argument about creating demand for the majority of the market, not just the 5% actively looking to buy, and why trust is more important than awareness for conversions. Lastly, we explored the power of word-of-mouth marketing and the importance of building relationships with influencers. Hearing about Andy's approach to B2B growth was enlightening, and I hope it will be for you too. Tune in to hear all about it.Guest LinksConnect with Andy on LinkedInBuy Social 3.0 on Amazon (affiliate)Sign Up for a Free Adobe Express Account (affiliate)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ready to tap into the power of User-Generated Content (UGC) and revolutionize your social media marketing strategy? I recorded this episode to flesh out content for a chapter in my upcoming book, so this will also act as a special preview as to what I have been working on.I'll guide you through the captivating new world of UGC, where engaging TikTok influencers and the rising breed of 'Instagrammable' content creators is becoming the norm. You'll discover why everything from customer selfies to thought leader ads on LinkedIn is now part of the UGC arsenal, and why B2B brands are jumping on this bandwagon.Ever wondered why 92% of consumers trust UGC more than traditional marketing content? The authenticity and relatability of UGC have a powerful impact on consumers, influencing their purchasing decisions and helping to build meaningful relationships. I've got intriguing statistics to share that shed light on the sway of UGC, and I'll dive into a practical example from the real estate sector to illustrate how UGC can be leveraged effectively in B2B scenarios. Finally, I’ll share some tried-and-tested strategies to motivate your customers to create UGC, from establishing brand ambassadors to running branded hashtag campaigns. Whether you are a B2B brand or an emerging influencer ready to shine, there's something valuable for everyone in this episode. So, ready to reimagine your social media presence? Let's embark on this exciting journey together in the world of User-Generated Content. Tune in for a treasure trove of insights and actionable advice.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of turning a passion project into a thriving business? Imagine being at a crossroads in your career, unsure of the next step, and a friend suggests starting a blog. That's how Graham Robertson, founder and CEO of Beloved Brands, began his entrepreneurial journey. Listen in as Graham unfolds his transformative transition from a corporate marketer to an independent brand strategist, leveraging the power of his blog to reach out to an audience that spans across 30 countries.Graham's voyage of self-discovery began with a blog on WordPress, where he wrote extensively about his passion - marketing. As the blog gained traction, he figured out the importance of strategic writing, niche selection and reader feedback in shaping his content. Delve deeper into the art of identifying your areas of expertise and utilizing guest bloggers to fill your knowledge gaps, as Graham navigates his way through an intricate world of blogging that ultimately led him to a whopping 50,000 monthly visitors.Graham didn't stop at just blogging; he used his platform to build a business empire. From leveraging SEO and keyword research to boost website traffic, to creating brand funnels, writing and publishing a book, designing templates, and launching an online course, he has done it all. In our conclusive discussion, he sheds light on his process of creating and selling digital products. Get an insider's view of his journey from translating his work from a Mac to PowerPoint, selling templates through WooCommerce, to developing an online course that mirrors his in-person training experience using Thinkific. Buckle up for a roller-coaster ride into Graham Robertson’s world of turning blogs into businesses!Guest LinksBeloved Brands: https://beloved-brands.com/Connect with Graham on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamrobertson1/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What do you do after you publish 2 books on LinkedIn but would rather work on new content rather than revise the older books?You offer a free update on LinkedIn best practices.With that thought, my free ebook, Maximizing LinkedIn for Business, was born.Now in its 4th edition, which I am announcing with this podcast episode, this is a 55-page PDF chock full of recommendations and best practices that has become a labor of love to revise annually to make sure it is even more up-to-date than a published book, which aren't as frequently updated.This year I decided to focus on creating two new chapters:1️⃣ The Art of LinkedIn Content - helping you understand and create the new types of content that appear to get the most visibility in the LinkedIn feed2️⃣ How to Leverage A.I. Specifically for LinkedIn - introducing the tools and processes that I use to inspire you to do more on LinkedInIf you were curious the chapter I removed to make way for the new chapters is:LinkedIn Automation: I included it because I know a lot of people to continue to use it, but I have also seen many people end up in LinkedIn Jail as a result. Why not spend the time in content creation and actually engaging with others and developing real relationships?Download the ebook here: https://nealschaffer.com/linkedin-book-free-download/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Highlighting an industry trailblazer, I'm honored to host Jon Ferrara, the tech visionary behind Goldmine, once the largest CRM in the world, and Nimble, the pioneer of social CRMs. Buckle up as Jon takes us on a journey exploring how to turn social media into a goldmine of sales leads, stake your claim with influencers, and leverage social media to resonate with your audience.Strap yourself in for an expedition into the world of relationships - building, scaling, and managing them effectively over time. Jon underscores the lifeblood of purpose in our ventures, and how digital platforms can be harnessed to amplify our humanity and carve out a robust brand. We delve into the promise of technology to bolster business strategies, and the crucial need to be authentic in engagements. As we round up, Jon gifts us with his wisdom on establishing business habits and workflows, emphasizing the crucial role of customer feedback in product evolution. We explore the intersection of social selling and influencer marketing and the power they wield in scaling businesses. This episode, brimming with invaluable tips and strategies, is your key to unlocking the potential of social selling and digital marketing.Guest LinksNimble: https://nimble.comConnect with Jon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonvferrara/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Do you feel there's a missing link in your marketing strategy? It might be time to incorporate 'Ikigai,' a Japanese concept that brings purpose and meticulous precision into the equation.  I'm here to show you how focusing on the details, embracing who you are, and finding joy in the little things can contribute to your professional success. In this intimate solo episode, we'll unlock the meaning of 'Ikigai' and explore how it's been a driving force in my life and career. Drawing from my 15 years of living and working in Japan, I'll share tales of sushi chefs striving for perfection and question how your purpose or mission manifests in your content. Whether you're a marketer, entrepreneur, or content creator, it's time to discover your Ikigai and take a new purpose-driven approach to marketing. Are you ready to grow? Let's get started.Links:Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day by Ken Mogi: https://amzn.to/47kKMwA [affiliate]Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What happens when the lines between podcasting and YouTube start to blur? Join me as I sit down with Vyyyper - The Man About Tech, from vidIQ, as we venture into this buzzing convergence. Vyyyper, a renowned YouTube expert, generously offers his insights drawn from his transformative journey from a tech content creator to an executive social media producer at vidIQ. His story is a testament to the power of determination and the importance of sharing knowledge - a true inspiration for all content creators.Podcasting on YouTube might seem like uncharted territory, but with Vyyyper's guidance, you'll unravel the intricacies of this exciting medium. We delve into the art of creating content that resonates, navigating through the changing landscape shaped by platforms like TikTok. Discover the true potential of authenticity in content creation, and why you don't need top-tier gear to succeed. We further explore strategies to optimize podcasts on YouTube, making them valuable for listeners and successful in the algorithm.The conversation takes a turn towards repurposing content and understanding YouTube's algorithm, vital aspects for content creators. Vyyyper uncovers the potential of creating multiple formats from a single source, maximizing reach, and humanizing brands on YouTube. We wrap up with an introduction to vidIQ's game-changing AI Content Generator. Join us in this enlightening journey, where Vyyyper paints a vivid picture of the future of podcasting and YouTube, loaded with a wealth of practical advice that you cannot afford to miss. Tune in to this episode - a goldmine of insights from the man who’s been there and done that.Guest LinksCheck out VidIQ here: https://nealschaffer.com/vidiq (affiliate)Check out Vyyyper's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/TheManAboutTechLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ever feel like your digital marketing efforts are scattered all over the place? I'm here to share a groundbreaking concept called marketing containers that will revolutionize your approach to content marketing, enhancing your strategies and optimizing your resources. Encapsulating my professional experiences and insights, I'll reveal why these containers are the future of strategic marketing and how they connect with my fifth book and the SES framework I introduced to you in episode #326.Let's shape your marketing campaigns and overall operations in a more organized, strategic way with marketing containers. I'll guide you on creating these containers and subcontainers, helping you prioritize your digital marketing activities and increase efficiency. I'll illustrate this with an example of content buckets - a unique way to create containers for each product and its associated keywords for SEO, PPC, content creation, and social media ads. And here's a fun challenge: come up with your own marketing container strategy and you might just get a shoutout in my upcoming book! Get ready to streamline, strategize, and supersize your marketing success!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ever wondered how to brew compelling content that sets you apart? Join me for a riveting conversation with Melanie Deziel, a content wizard who began her journey in journalism and went on to shape the digital marketing world. This episode is loaded with Melanie's intriguing anecdotes - from creating branded content for the Huffington Post and the New York Times to her time as the Director of Creative Strategy at Time Inc. Plus, she recounts the challenging yet triumphant book launch of Content Fuel during a global pandemic. Melanie shares her ingenious approach to content creation, leveraging AI and chat GPT ideation to keep the content wheel spinning. She gives us a sneak peek into her latest book, Prove It, a manifesto of her belief in earning audience trust through content. We'll explore the idea of content as evidence, validating business claims and fueling digital marketing drives. Lastly, we delve into the heart of content creation, exploring Melanie's distinct content fuel framework. She underlines the importance of 'focus' and 'format' in the content ideation process, and how the delicate interplay between the two shapes engaging content. We also discuss potential roadblocks to ideation and innovation in companies, and how leaders can catalyze creativity within their teams. Tune in for an enlightening conversation brimming with practical tips and insights. Don't miss it!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What if you could streamline your digital, content, influencer, social media, and marketing strategies with ease?Join me as I unravel unique frameworks and processes to make this aspect of your business more manageable. Using insights gathered from crafting my upcoming fifth book, I want to share with you not just theories, but practical, implementable strategies to help you navigate the digital marketing maze.Ever heard of the SES framework for digital marketing? Or the Digital Relationships Funnel?Let's explore how these game-changing ideas can help your business convert prospects into advocates, using the trifecta of search, email, and social media. And it doesn't end there! We'll be uncovering how organic and paid social media, along with influencer marketing and strategic website content, play pivotal roles in this conversion process. Tune in for an enlightening conversation that will revolutionize how you approach your digital marketing strategy. Be ready to take notes, you won't want to miss it!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Imagine attending a party that teaches you the ins and outs of social media marketing. That's exactly what we explore in our conversation with Jason McDonald, best-selling author of digital marketing and internet marketing workbooks. Jason shares his expertise on SEO, social media, and ads, as well as his journey from working in the embedded systems industry to helping small businesses succeed online. Plus, we dive into his fascinating experience creating a coloring book about Donald Trump.We discuss Jason's party analogy and how it can be applied to both B2B and B2C marketing strategies. Learn how to approach social media marketing like attending a party and figure out what kind of party you should be throwing. We also break down the complex world of technical analysis, making it simple and accessible for small business owners. Discover the importance of understanding the big picture, sequencing tasks, and translating tech jargon into terms that make sense to marketers.Finally, we chat about promoting Jason McDonald's books and how businesses can find success in digital marketing. Jason shares some valuable resources for those who may not have the means to purchase his books, and he invites you to join his Digital First group coaching membership community. Don't miss this engaging and insightful conversation with Jason McDonald that will surely spark some new ideas for your marketing strategies. Join us and get ready to party your way to social media marketing success!Guest LinksJason McDonald's Personal Website: https://www.jasonmcdonald.org/Jason's SEO Agency: https://www.jm-seo.org/Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoneg3/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ready to unlock the full potential of LinkedIn Creator Mode and skyrocket your reach? I've got you covered with a game-changing episode that reveals how this powerful, yet underutilized feature can help you broaden your reach, grow your network, and establish thought leadership. As a business owner, entrepreneur, or content creator, you'll get a step-by-step tutorial on activating and maximizing LinkedIn Creator Mode, so you can be on your way to dominating the platform!As I walk you through this amazing feature, we'll share tips on how to create hashtags, add custom website links, feature lead magnets and activity, and even host LinkedIn Live events. You'll discover how to leverage StreamYard for promoting live streams on LinkedIn and how to utilize the LinkedIn newsletter feature for further reach. Plus, learn how to get subscribers straight from your profile and boost your visibility. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about one of LinkedIn's best new features in years and get ready to make your mark on the platform!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Discover the power of psychological principles in marketing as we chat with Nancy Harhut, author of "Using Behavioral Science in Marketing." Uncover why C-suite executives are recognizing the immense potential of incorporating behavioral science into their strategies and how you can stay ahead of the curve.From leveraging the magnetic middle to exploring choice architecture, we discuss practical ways to tap into the hardwired behaviors and decision-making processes of your customers. By utilizing persuasive language, you'll learn how to craft content that captures your audience's attention and drives them to engage with your brand. Plus, hear about my experience using choice architecture to boost conversions significantly.As the future of artificial intelligence continues to intersect with behavioral science, Nancy sheds light on how AI can enhance your marketing efforts. We delve into the use of AI for crafting compelling copy while stressing the importance of human interaction in closing sales. Don't miss this enlightening conversation with expert Nancy Harhut and elevate your marketing game by harnessing the power of behavioral science.Guest LinksNancy's Company HBT Marketing: https://www.hbtmktg.com/Buy Using Behavioral Science in Marketing on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4617E3n [affiliate]Connect with Nancy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyharhutLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What if AI could be the game-changer you need to revolutionize your digital marketing strategy? In this captivating episode, I unlock the power of AI and its potential to transform the way businesses and individuals operate. Listen closely to learn how a new generation of doing things stacks up against traditional marketing methods. I also dive into the world of AI-powered virtual assistants, where your imagination is the only limit to what you can achieve.As we continue to explore the wonders of AI, I examine its role in content creation. Discover how generative AI can be used to not only improve existing content but also generate fresh ideas and build content outlines. Say goodbye to writer's block and learn how AI can speed up content generation, optimize your content for SEO, and even create custom images. Plus, I'll discuss the importance of establishing an AI policy and how to seamlessly integrate AI into your content creation process.But why stop there? In the final segment of this episode, I delve into the limitless potential of AI in marketing tools. Learn how AI can forecast outcomes, enhance customer service, and personalize marketing efforts based on purchase history. I even touch on AI's role in pay-per-click ad management, dynamic pricing, marketing automation, image recognition, social listening, and sentiment analysis. With invaluable advice on how to best harness the power of AI to grow your business, this episode is an absolute must-listen for digital marketers and entrepreneurs alike.A.I. tools mentioned in this video: (yes, affiliate links, but click through for special offers!)Jasper.ai (for general A.I. content creation) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/jasperFrase.io (for SEO) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/fraseTubeBuddy (for YouTube) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/tubebuddyVidIQ (for YouTube) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/vidiqDescript (for audio and video editing) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/descriptTweetHunter (for Twitter) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/tweethunterPinGenerator (for Pinterest) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/pingeneratorContentIn (for LinkedIn) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/contentinLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Imagine building an army of irrationally loyal fans for your brand, fans who keep coming back for more and help your business thrive in today's competitive marketplace. In our captivating conversation with branding expert and author Deb Gabor, we discuss just that - the secrets to turning customers into devoted followers and her latest book, 'Person-Ality Cultivate Your Human Authority to Ignite Irrational Brand Loyalty'.Deb's journey from working at AT&T Bell Labs and other technology startups to becoming an accidental entrepreneur is both fascinating and inspiring. We dive deep into the concept of irrational loyalty, the Brand Values Pyramid, and the four-point formula for creating a winning brand strategy. Deb also shares her passion for working with unsexy brands in unsexy categories, and the importance of branding in the B2B world for building strong connections with clients.We even explore the potential of AI in marketing and branding, and whether it could ever replace the human touch when it comes to creating content that resonates with customers. So, tune in and discover how to elevate your brand strategy, hack Maslow's hierarchy, and create a loyal fan base eager to stand by your brand!Guest LinksBuy Person-ality on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3MxkJIR (affiliate)Deb's Website: https://debgabor.com/Connect with Deb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dgabor/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Discover the top 10 AI marketing tools that I personally use and love! In this episode, I'll reveal my favorite tools and give you a demo of each one, so you can see how they can help you grow your business. From content creation to SEO optimization, these AI-powered tools are game-changers for startups, business owners, and entrepreneurs. Don't miss out on these incredible resources! ▶️ Catch the livestream here: https://youtube.com/live/-1pSRJRddCk▶️ Grab my free marketing tools ebook here: https://nealschaffer.com/best-digital-marketing-tools-guide/▶️ Links to the AI marketing tools covered in this video for free trials and discounts below!1️⃣ Google Bard https://bard.google.com2️⃣ Frase.io https://nealschaffer.com/frase3️⃣ SocialBee https://nealschaffer.com/socialbee4️⃣ TweetHunter https://nealschaffer.com/tweethunter5️⃣ PinGenerator https://nealschaffer.com/pingenerator6️⃣ PodSqueeze https://nealschaffer.com/podsqueeze7️⃣ Jasper https://nealschaffer.com/jasper8️⃣ Tailwind https://nealschaffer.com/tailwind9️⃣ TubeBuddy https://nealschaffer.com/tubebuddy🔟 VidIQ https://nealschaffer.com/vidiqLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Has your marketing data been feeling a little flat?Are you looking for ways to increase your ROI? Look no further! In this interview with the digital marketing analytics and ROI dashboard Digivizer CEO and co-founder, Emma Lo Russo, we'll show you 3 actionable strategies to help you analyze your marketing data and maximize your return on investment. Learn how to:attract quality web traffic to your site, improve your website ranking and optimize your SEO.boost paid advertising performance and maximize your ROAS.optimize your SEO position by harnessing the search terms your customers are using.So don't delay - tune in to learn how to better maximize your marketing data today!Guest Links:Try Digivizer for Free Here: https://nealschaffer.com/digivizer [affiliate]Connect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmalorusso/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I'm diving deep into the world of podcasting and exploring the true value it can bring to your business! Podcasting isn't just about monetizing your content; it's about building relationships, growing your audience, and establishing yourself as an authority in your niche.I'll discuss the various ways you can measure the ROI of your podcast, from increased brand awareness to networking opportunities and more. Plus, I'll share some insider tips on how to maximize your podcast's potential for success. Don't miss this insightful conversation that will change the way you think about podcasting and its impact on your business. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In this episode I interview Andrew Schulkind, the author of "Marketing for Small B2B Businesses: How Content Creates Marketing Muscle and Powers Traditional and Digital Marketing." The episode focuses on building a sustainable marketing machine for small businesses, with a particular emphasis on B2B businesses. Andrew shares his expertise in working with small businesses and provides actionable advice for creating effective content marketing strategies. The conversation covers topics such as the importance of audience-centric content and the role of AI in content creation.Show NotesAndrew's background in video [00:02:08] Andrew talks about his background in video and how his company, Indigo, evolved from video to web to content marketing.Andrew's background in video and evolution to content marketing [00:04:38] Andrew talks about his background in video and how his company, Indigo, evolved from video to web to content marketing.Definition of small businesses [00:06:10] Andrew defines small businesses as companies with under 100 employees or under $100 million in sales.Definition of small businesses [00:08:11] Neil and Andrew discuss the definition of small businesses, which Andrew defines as companies with under 100 employees or under $100 million in sales.Small Business Definition [00:08:40] Andrew Schoen defines small businesses as companies with under 100 employees or under $100 million in sales.Writing a Book [00:09:54] Andrew Schoen talks about how he was approached by a publishing company to write a book and the process of writing it.Marketing Mindset [00:14:47] Andrew Schoen emphasizes the importance of understanding that marketing is not about you, but about demonstrating that you understand the problem your target audience is experiencing and creating content that provides value to them.The Importance of Audience-Centric Content [00:16:25] The speakers discuss the common mistake of companies creating company-centric content instead of audience-centric content, and the importance of focusing on the end customer's needs.Challenges of Measuring ROI and Attribution [00:18:17] The speakers talk about the challenges of measuring ROI and attribution in marketing, and how it depends on the management team's expectations and opinions.Simplifying Marketing for Small Businesses [00:23:20] The guest emphasizes that small business marketers don't need to understand the technical minutiae of websites or copy the social media strategies of national consumer brands. Instead, they need to know how to build successful marketing machines that they can sustain with their available resources.Building a Sustainable Marketing Machine [00:24:17] Andrew Schoen gives advice on building a sustainable marketing machine for small businesses, including relying on experts, understanding resource limitations, and creating systems for consistency.Tools for Managing Marketing Activities [00:27:47] Andrew and Neil discuss the importance of having tools in place to manage marketing activities, including project management software like ClickUp or Monday.comLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In this podcast episode, I discuss the importance of investing in marketing and not being too frugal with marketing budgets. I share personal examples of how investing money in the right areas can lead to significant returns in terms of lead generation and business growth. I emphasize the importance of not being a "cheapskate" in marketing and instead doing smart marketing. This episode highlights the mindset of how we spend our money and the need to reconstruct a marketing budget on a year-to-year basis.TIMESTAMPSInvesting in Marketing [00:01:14] I share personal examples of how investing a little more money in marketing tools and webinars can lead to significant returns in terms of lead generation and business growth.Importance of AI in Marketing [00:04:09] I emphasize the importance of investing in marketing tools that incorporate AI, as almost every marketing tool is including some form of AI into their tool.Influencer Marketing [00:06:44] I discusses the importance of investing in influencer marketing and not being too stingy with compensation for influencers. I suggest that companies should offer influencers something of value, such as free use of their tool, in exchange for promoting their product.Investing in Marketing Tools [00:10:22] I emphasize the importance of investing in marketing tools and AI to help scale and grow a business.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I interview Chris Smith, author of The Conversion Code, about implementing a sales-focused marketing strategy. We discuss the science behind the convergence of sales and marketing and provide real step-by-step advice for success. Chris emphasizes the importance of having a well-organized website and landing pages, lead follow-up, and inside sales. He also stresses the significance of technology in scaling marketing strategies and encourages executives to support their employees in conducting experiments and taking risks.Guest Links:Curaytor: https://www.curaytor.com/The Conversion Code Website: https://www.theconversioncode.com/The Conversion Code: Stop Chasing Leads and Start Attracting Clients by Chris Smith: https://amzn.to/41yuTyy (affiliate)Chris on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chris_smth/Time Stamps*Chris Smith's Background [00:04:30]*Chris Smith talks about his background in sales and marketing, starting in the boiler room doing phone sales for telemarketing companies.*The Early Days of Social Media [00:08:38]*Chris Smith talks about how he became influential in the real estate industry through social media and how the Wall Street Journal offered him $5000 a month to advertise on his blog.*The Importance of Listening in Content Marketing [00:09:37]*I discuss with Chris Smith the importance of listening more than speaking in content marketing and he shares a story about how asking questions can lead to success.*The Importance of Digital Marketing Fundamentals [00:16:25]*Chris Smith and I discuss the importance of having digital marketing fundamentals in place before implementing more advanced strategies, and how many companies still struggle with the basics.*The Importance of Website and Sales Process [00:16:44]*Chris Smith emphasizes the importance of having a clean website and a well-structured sales process before investing in marketing.*The Science of Marketing and Sales [00:18:03]*Chris Smith talks about his personal approach to marketing and sales, which involves experimenting and testing different strategies to see what works.*Challenges of Large Companies [00:23:33]*Chris Smith and I discuss the challenges that large companies face when it comes to implementing new marketing and sales strategies, and the importance of having a supportive executive team.*Lead Follow Up [00:25:06]*Chris Smith discusses the importance of lead follow up and shares tips on how to improve lead conversion rates, including speed to lead and personalization.*Inside Sales [00:29:58]*Chris Smith defines inside sales as a call center that focuses on outbound calling to inbound leads and shares how it differs from outside sales. He also emphasizes the importance of scripts, questions, and tone in inside sales.*Importance of Lead Conversion [00:29:33]*Chris Smith shares a quick stat that 95% oLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The creator economy has unleashed a new generation of creators who seek to become niche experts.While having niche expertise in an industry can be helpful to your business if you want to market in that industry, does hiring a niche expert to help with your marketing make sense?On the other hand, what is the holistic marketing concept, and how does working with a holistic marketing expert differ from working with a niche expert?These are the questions I will answer based on my own experience in helping companies and transitioning from one to the other - you'll find out all about it by listening to the end!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

One might argue that influencer marketing should be an even more important marketing channel for B2B brands, but most simply misunderstand what is potentially the most powerful marketing channel for them.From leveraging employees as internal influencers to properly collaborating with external influencers, influencer marketing can have a profound impact on B2B businesses when done right.So how do you best DO B2B influencer marketing?I can't think of anyone in the world to more knowledgable about B2B influencer marketing than Tim Williams, CEO of Onalytica.Together we will discuss the following:- ROI of B2B Influencer Marketing- Best ways to activate B2B Creators- What B2B Creators are looking for when partnering with brands- How to connect your Employee Advocacy & Influencer Marketing programs- How to measure influencer marketing successI hope you can join us for what should be a profoundly educational and invaluable use of your time!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you looking to breathe some new air into your digital marketing?Want to create content that can truly be leveraged across EVERY social media and evergreen content platform?Do you want to have more FUN with your content and create a community revolving around it and your content experience?A LOT has been said about live streaming, but I don't think it has ever been described in the way that I have experienced and learned over the last few weeks...Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you have an interest in content marketing, you might know who Joe Pulizzi is and his absolute authority on the subject. But just in case, Joe is considered the legitimate Godfather of Content Marketing because he is the:Founder of Content Marketing InstituteFounder of Content Marketing WorldAuthor of several content marketing books, including the recently revised Epic Content MarketingHe also recently founded the Creator Economy ExpoBut Joe is not going to give you the content marketing advice that you already know. On the contrary, Joe is going to teach you some unconventional ways of thinking about content marketing.Intrigued?You should be!GUEST LINKSCreator Economy Expo: https://nealschaffer.com/cex [affiliate]Epic Content Marketing on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3JJ96NE [affiliate]The Tilt: https://thetilt.comLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

You've heard it a million times: you need to do marketing campaigns if you want your business to grow.But what if I told you that's not actually true? That focusing on something else instead could lead to even better results? Listen to this episode to find out what that "something else" is.Specifically I will be discussing the ineffectiveness of marketing campaigns and suggesting an experimental approach to marketing. I emphasize the importance of a data-driven approach to marketing and experimenting with different channels, mediums, and influencers to achieve better results. I also discuss the PDCA approach to marketing, which emphasizes planning, doing, checking, and acting upon experiments to achieve continuous improvement. I conclude by encouraging marketers to focus on continuous improvement and adapting to changes in social media platforms and algorithms. This episode provides valuable insights for marketers, entrepreneurs, business owners, and content creators.Key Highlights**Marketing Campaigns [00:00:01]**As a marketing professional, I have come to realize that traditional marketing campaigns are often outdated and ineffective. That's why I believe a data-driven approach to marketing is necessary to stay ahead of the competition.**PDCA Approach to Marketing [00:04:46]**I have found that the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) approach to marketing is a great way to conduct experiments and continuously improve marketing strategies. By following this approach, I can make data-driven decisions and adjust my marketing tactics accordingly.**Data-Driven Experiments [00:07:31]**In my experience, conducting data-driven experiments across different marketing channels, mediums, and influencers is crucial to achieving better results than traditional marketing campaigns. By analyzing the data, I can identify what works and what doesn't, and adjust my strategies accordingly.**Data-Driven Marketing [00:10:16]**I cannot stress enough the importance of a data-driven approach to marketing. By experimenting with different channels, mediums, and influencers, and shifting resources based on data, I can ensure that my marketing efforts are effective and efficient.**Conclusion [00:11:15]**To summarize, a data-driven approach to marketing is necessary to stay ahead of the competition.Notable QuotesHere's the thing, I don't believe in campaigns, there is nothing to share. And I thought a lot about this. And I thought maybe I'm crazy that I don't have this campaign mindset. Now, I am not a traditional marketer. The notion of a campaign falls back into that traditional marketing. And it's disruptive in nature, right? It's something that existed before social media.There are something called launches, a launch might be considered a campaign, but the idea is you are a new brand, or you're an existing brand and you have a new product. So you need to generate massive brand awareness for this new brand or new product in a limited amount of time. So my view of a launch is a launch, we need to gather data, we have no data, we have no idea how much to spend on what platforms, we thiLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

67 percent of B2B buyers no longer prefer to interact with sales representatives when making purchasing decisions. Gathering information online is now the hallmark of the buying process.This is great background for today's interview with Steven Mark Kahan, author of High Velocity Digital Marketing, who has successfully helped grow seven startup companies from early stage to going public or being sold, resulting in $5 billion in shareholder value. Based on his recent $1.4 billion dollar exit with cybersecurity firm, Thycotic, he will share the inside secrets of how to build a sales and marketing strategy that delivers breakthrough revenue growth –in brutally competitive markets, including:•The modern digital marketing strategies he recommends to his clients  - that any company can replicate•Easy-to-implement strategies for getting found online, providing the most critical information, and getting buyers to purchase—fast. While the interview is focused on B2B, the advice is equally applicable to B2C, so make sure you tune in!Key Highlights[02:02] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Steven Mark Kahan[04:03] Steven's Journey to Digital Marketing[05:11] Why Steven Wrote High-Velocity Digital Marketing[07:08] The Importance of the Foundations of Digital Marketing[10:01] Ask the Right Questions![14:06] Strengthening Your Digital Marketing Foundation[18:03] 3 Ways Steven Convince Brands to Invest in Content that Fill In Gaps[22:27] The Analogy of How People Buy Today[24:43] High-Velocity Tips from Steven [28:32] Think About Velocity![31:36] Final Thoughts[32:42] Connect With StevenNotable QuotesCertainly the way in which people buy today is they buy based on the research they do online. So if you're going to market today, digital is the way you have to go.Beyond just not talking to customers enough, it's really defining who your ideal target buyer is in detail, such that you're able to effectively target your digital programs to them. And then, of course, it's understanding the full context of their world.What are these buyers that you're targeting digitally, they're not looking really for how creative or clever your marketing department is, what they're looking for, is to work with companies that understand them, that empathize with them.A lot of it then comes to how you utilize that information to create your value proposition to ensure that it is differentiated, that you're able to communicate that unique value perfectly to that target buyer.It was really how you use that information to incorporate it within your messaging, and then how you also use that information in the content that you create across the buyers journey.You got to be great online, if you want to consistently grow revenue for sure. And Google is key.Guest LinksHigh Velocity Digital Marketing on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3mDSSgC [affiliate] Connect with Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekahan/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Following up on my report from the Generative AI conference, today's guest has transformed a social media dashboard into becoming an AI ghostwriter for digital and social media marketing.Meet Greg Starling, Head of the Innovation Labs at Tailwind, who is helping to create a new generative AI product there.- Using AI to brainstorm ideas- Using AI to streamline marketing processes- When & how to partner with AI for maximum effectivenessTake a deep dive into A.I. and how you can better leverage it for your business.Key Highlights[03:53] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Greg Starling[07:51] How Greg Got Into the AI Industry[10:30] Pushing AI Into Create Tools[12:41] Getting the Right Queries and Prompts[18:46] Areas Where Tailwind Has Implemented AI[22:39] Transition from Social Media Dashboard to AI Marketing Tool[23:48] Leveraging the AI Engine[28:54] Streamling AI Into the Marketing Process[33:19] Greg's Quick Tip on Writing Summary[34:37] Where to Start the Process of Using AI?[40:01] Where GPT Technology Is Going?[45:08] Connect With GregNotable QuotesPeople just think chat GPT is only chat GPT When, at the end of the day, you're gonna get something very generic from it, as you said, compared to other tools that are that are putting, you know, secret sauces on top of it.Anywhere where you're writing content that you want to that you're using to try to market yourself market your brand, we probably have some AI assistance there that could that can move you along quicker.We're trying to do things where we can give you a full on marketing plan, but then help you execute that plan with AI. There's this concept that people romanticize a blank page, people say, Oh, well, there's endless possibilities. But the truth is, a blank page stops people from doing what they need to do.We're trying to get you off of that blank page, and onto the next step and actually moving forwards, in your kind of marketing process. I think people who get really good at this will actually replace people who who ignore it or fearful of it, I know a lot of people aren't I get it, but it's not going to you being fearful of it is not going to stop happening. So I think everybody's got to figure out how they can fit in and, and take advantage of it.Start finding a platform that you like that you trust, that you think has your best interests in mind, and figure out how you can start implementing those into your product. You need an AI strategy. Even a company like tailwind, had an AI strategy implemented it and you can see what's happened. So every one of us needs to think.Guest Links:Greg Starling on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregstarling/Try Out Tailwind Here: https://nealschaffer.com/tailwind (affiliate)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The use of AI in marketing and business in general is evolving much quicker than you might think. I had a chance to attend Jasper's Generative AI conference in San Francisco this month and wanted to share with you how far things are progressing and the impact it is already having on marketing and business.Tune in and I trust that you will also come to the same understanding that the future of A.I. is now and that is not a question of experimentation but of serious strategizing and implementation.Try out Jasper here: https:https://nealschaffer.com/jasper [affiliate link]Key Highlights [04:52] The First Successful AI Program[06:00] Turning Points that Defined Modern Business[06:52] Generative AI Defined[08:26] Generative AI for Content Creation[10:08] Jasper AI Features and Evolution[14:32] AI for Marketing[21:06] Possible Decline of Search Engine Traffic[25:25] The Creativity AI Can Foster[29:52] AI's Impact on the Business World[33:09] AI for Co-development[35:16] How AI Makes Content Marketing Accessible[40:42] How to Future Proof[45:25] AI Literacy and AI Hallucinations[49:47] Why You Should Continue Using JasperNotable QuotesThe only thing that has ever held our ideas back has been an inability to convey them. Thus, from AI, creating that content, the hours reclaimed that we can invest into thinking, expanding and refining ideas, and creating even better content is innumerable. Today, baseline AI is a baseline part of most technology. But in the future, your brand's unique AI, will become that critical turning point of really personalized AI that really can represent your brand voice. Too often, marketers see new technology and rush to the lowest bar of its creation. Just because the barriers have dropped with AI, doesn't mean our standards should. So instead of always creating new content, why don't we take our old content and treat them as assets, and further improve upon them. It's not about the quantity, it's about the quality, and good content, truly good content requires ideation.  And with AI the best ideas win!Create to inspire something to think about. And one of the big messages from this conference was humans collaborating with technology, right? It's all about the creativity that AI can help unleash, not just robotic text. Instead of trying to learn it all yourself, take advantage of the fact that the AI can do a lot of it for you, and work on higher-level issues, similar to how marketers should work on higher-level issues like ideas, and distribution. And this power of ideation is critical for business. Future-proofing ourselves means using AI to enhance our humanity, not erase it remember, ideation become more creative. Let AI be AI, and humans be humans. AI can help you get to where you want to go. But it can't tell you the right direction to go. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Social media is not an option for generating organic traffic back to your website anymore.It is time to use social media what it was intended for, and to reap the benefits and gain a competitive advantage compared to those who are still using social media as if it was 2010.This is time to embrace authentically social content. Short form video is one example of this type of content, but there is another text-based type that can be effective on LinkedIn and Twitter.Listen in for the full definitions and detailed advice!Key Highlights[02:30] My First AI Conference[05:09] The Automated Approach in Social Media Now[07:51] The Concept of Authentic Social[10:23] Why I Started to be Convertational in My Social Media Content[11:49] The Commonality I See in Different Types of Content[13:05] My Twitter Experiment[14:42] Tips in Using AI in Content Marketing[18:37] Podcasts for Repurposing ContentNotable QuotesWe have matured as an audience that uses social media, we use it differently. And we understand what is the intent of someone when they reach out to us or when they post something on a specific topic.Social media is a place to develop relationships, and engage with people and find your fans, find your customers, find your partners, whatever it is. It is an amazing place to build brand awareness, through conversation.I would recommend you create a short form video that teaches one thing. This short form content that is truly authentic is based around providing value around one idea, like a micro blog post. So whether it's Twitter threads, whether it's these LinkedIn posts, there's a commonality here that I am seeing. And it is a different type of content that perhaps younger people with a fresher look at content and these platforms, has found a way, being authentic and their content to really generate some pretty massive engagement.I'm not saying completely stopped doing what you've been doing. But I'm saying by interjecting maybe starting once a week, , I think you're going to be rewarded. And by the way, that the biggest reward is not just the algorithm, but you're developing a deeper and more authentic relationship with your followers, and your connections as well. The emergence of short form video, this is a another piece of that puzzle, but it's technically based. And if you can't buy in a short form video, I think this is something that you can buy into, you can create a system a process and start to insert more authentically social content into your feed. And I think you will reap the benefits from doing that. Links MentionedJasperTailwindLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

TikTok is becoming more critical of a channel to tap into a new generation and new trends. But there are many things that we can apply from our legacy social media marketing into understanding and leveraging this newest of social media platforms for our business.Today's guest, Cassie Petrey, co-founder of the digital marketing company Crowd Surf, has helped some of the most iconic musicians such as Backstreet Boys and Camila Cabello use social media to connect with their audience. That same advice can be used for your business regardless of industry. Listen in for the details!Key Highlights[04:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Cassie Petrey[07:26] Cassie Journey to Social Media Marketing Industry[18:13 Cassie's First Thought on TikTok[20:10] Best Practices on Launching TikTok Account[23:55] Growing TikTok Account Over Time[26:35] The Importance of Engaging Within Social Community[28:25] Defining High Quality TikTok Content [31:00] How Musicians Approach Influencer Collaborations on TikTok[34:41] Different Avenues in Finding Collaborative Relationship[38:25] Connect With Cassie[39:08] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesAnd if you think about it, computers aren't really that, you know, as fun without the internet without being able to connect with people. So I think this sort of like tool existing, to be able to normal person have a computer at home and be able to connect and do things on the internet was it really changed a lot of things in pop culture at that time.I would say the most important thing is, before you even get on there, sort of have a vision of what your video content is going to be. The worst thing I think I see people do is they basically like copy videos from other people try to make it them themselves.I think when you get out of your head about what everyone else is doing, and is think about what a tool is, at its core, that's when a lot of people sort of find the freedom to come up with the best ideas on what they can create to that represents their brand.I feel like people start creating the content that's not good for them is when you start chasing when you either are making content because you are afraid or you feel guilty. Or because you think something you're making something because you think it's gonna get good numbers. And not because you think it's fun, or because you think it's good for your brand.Spend time not being about themselves. Dedicate time to be a part of a social community, not just to post and hope that people come to you like you have to, you have to be out there giving the engagement to other people that you want to be receiving.Always think about how do you want your brand to make people feel and in your video content, your social media content is an extension of that.I'm all about simplifying this stuff. Because I think when people make it too complicated is when people sort of throw their hands up, and they're like, this is scary and too complicated.Guest LinksCassie Petrey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cassiepetrey/Cassie Petrey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.coLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Yes, there is a lot of buzz about ChatGPT, but what exactly does it mean for your business and what should your next steps be? Listen to my perspective and advice, and learn how to apply ChatGPT to your specific business and marketing needs.Key Highlights [03:18] Experimenting with Chat GPT[06:00] Generative Artificial Intelligence Conference[08:05] How Does Chat GPT Works?[10:01] The Search Engine Aspect of AI Tools[11:58] How Far AI Has Come with Brainstorming Ideation[19:09] AI Tools As The Evolution of Technology[22:03] Using AI for Research and Content Ideation[23:50] Where It Gets Tricky[24:39] Start Experimenting AI Tools Now!Notable QuotesSo open AI is sort of considered the leaders in this technology and chat. GPT is just another iteration, another evolution, the improvement of this technology.The way these AI tools work is you're giving them an input, and it's giving you an output, and the output is defined by information that's available on the internet. That's why really good content writers, it doesn't matter what content you have them write for you, if they are really good at research. And they get a little experience in your topic in your company and your products and your industry. That content can represent you and your brand.Technology evolves. And this is the evolution of the Internet now that it has become this powerful brain, leveraging artificial intelligence technology, instead of just the information is always there on the internet in an inconvenient way. AI is going to make it extremely convenient to us extremely quick. But imagine, if you're writing a completely AI generated article, it is only based on what is out there on the internet. So if it's news, and other people have already published news about something, then yes, that actually makes sense. It's gonna save you time. But at the end of the day, why would I want to read the news from CNET, when I can read it from other people that are the source of the news, rather than through an AI bot? If you're not using it, my recommendation, the takeaway from today is to begin experimenting ASAP.So the message for today is, don't get left behind. Now's the time to really get up to speed. If you have men begin experimenting.Links Mentioned:Episode 260CopyscapeJasper AILearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Looking to improve your Instagram Reels? Today's special guest, Travis Brown (@travisbrown on Instagram) will teach you the tips and tricks to get the most out of your Instagram videos, including:How to research high-impact topics and hooksHow to only post content that worksHow to make videos 5 times fasterKey Highlights [04:02] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Travis Brown[06:24] Travis's Journey to Podcasting[07:59] Why Instagram Reels?[11:27] How Travis Started With Short-Form Videos[14:33] Balancing Work and Fun[20:58] 3 Steps to Having Viral Short-Form Videos[22:45] The Importance of Hooks and Topics[26:16] How to Know What Content Is Working[31:15] How Often Should You Post Reels?[37:50] Travis's Advice on Making Short-Form Videos Fast[42:14] 10x Video Challenge by Travis[42:46] Connect With TravisNotable QuotesAnd now I'm actually geared more towards helping people go full time as a creator. So creating opportunities in the digital landscape, that they now have the tools to reach all kinds of people to be able to grow an audience, build a community, and then monetize it so that they could live a lifestyle that they enjoy. What you resist the most is probably what's going to push you the farthest. Short form video is not going anywhere. It's not the future. It's the present. And so If podcasters, or businesses or personal brands aren't leveraging it, then they're missing out on a big opportunity to reach lots and lots of people.In order to reach a massive audience, you need to speak to broad and big topics. If your niche too far, you need to connect your niche to a broader topic.I challenge people to not compare themselves to the current state of another creator. What you do is you go back all the way to the beginning of their journey, and you compare yourself to that. And if you can make something better than that right now, then you're already ahead of the game. And that's the whole name of the game.That's the whole goal of marketing is to transform somebody's mindset about a thing, or a product, or help them make a transformation through your message. We want to only be posting things that we think are going to have a good chance. And you know, the key to this is that people make videos viral, an algorithm doesn't make things viral. When your video stops resonating with people is when they stop showing it to people. Guest Links:PodDecks: https://poddecks.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I recommend my clients always do an audit of their marketing technology stack on an annual basis, so here I am sharing my own stack in hopes of inspiring you to do the same and also to help you learn about some cool new tools that you might want to check out!Below are links to each of the tools - and note that many of them are affiliate links, but the price to you is the same - it just helps fuel the creator economy ;-)WEBWordPressShopifySEARCHSEMrushAhrefsMozFraseJasperSurfer SEOEMAILConvertKitActive CampaignConstant ContactSOCIALSocialBeeSprout SocialAgorapulseSendibleSocial PilotSocialDogTailwindContentInANALYTICSSocialInsider.ioDigivizerVISUAL & VIDEOAdobe ExpressCanvaZoomRiverside.fmStreamYardXSplit VcamCamtasiaRevLu.maPODCASTINGBuzzsproutPodcastPage.ioOtter.aiChartableListen NotesDIGITAL COURSES AND MEMBERSHIPSPodiaSlackChargeKeepMavenMiloTree CartPEOPLEUpworkLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Networking and fostering meaningful conversations to engage and move people are core skills that every marketing professional, entrepreneur, and business owner should have.To help us hone in on these skills to begin the new year, I am honored to have my friend and someone who I have a great deal of respect for, Minter Dial, on this episode.Minter is an elevating professional speaker and consultant on branding, leadership and transformation. As he prepares to finish writing his new book, Dialogos, Minter shares with us: Tools to facilitate conversationWays to meet new people (and network)Ways to develop your empathic listening skillsAs the pandemic slowly dwindles down and we go back out to working with and meeting more people in real life, this is the perfect episode to ensure we have the right mindset to take advantage of any and every potential networking situation.Key Highlights[01:54] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Minter Dial[05:53] Minter As An Elevator[07:12] How Minter Started His Speaking and Corporate Leadership Career[11:58] Minter's Books[13:51] Minter's Secret to Writing Content[18:03] Books On Substack[21:56] Recommended Tools in Facilitating A Conversation Approach to Business[23:49] The Empathy Circle[27:16] Helping People Find New People[31:44] Ways to Develop Empathic Listening Skills[34:36] The Reformulation Piece[39:47] Connect With MinterNotable QuotesIn the notion of elevation that's important to me, is finding more meaningfulness in whatever we do, whoever you are, in some kind of way.The point that I was getting to, especially since I started working on digital, was how much the brand should be represented by the human beings, the employees that are working within the company. And so branding gets personal was really my mantra.The first idea is it's really self-awareness, to notice when you're being triggered to notice when you are being overly excited. And in that impulsion, perhaps cutting off people not knowing to listen.The second part of it is learning how to listen without judgment. And that means putting aside your own ego, and really trying to understand what the other person is saying. And the goodwill tool here is reformulation.I have always thought that I am as strong as my network. But having a strong network doesn't mean having a lot of people. It means having a set of people who can have your back, have complementary skills, and add to your position, if you will not just like minded people, this is what I consider a strong network. It's not about having quantity, it's about enjoying the process, listening to stories and not having an agenda.Guest Links:Read Minter's Dialogos, Fostering More Meaningful Conversations via Substack https://minter.substack.comMinter Dial's Website: https://www.minterdial.com/Discover Minter's Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3kh59X8 [affiliate]ConnLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Welcome to episode 300! As part of an annual tradition, today I report to you on how my marketing channels and business did in 2022. I want to not only provide you the data to let you know why I recommend what I do, but also inspire you by providing you some benchmarks for your own digital marketing.Key Highlights[02:25] My Annual Look On How My Channels Performed[03:07] Where I Recommend You Begin With[04:14] My Website Traffic[06:28] Looking At My Direct Traffic[08:44] You need to Reset Your Approach to Social Media[10:13] Digging Deeper Inside Website Traffic[14:15] My Two Takeaways[18:23] My Digital Marketing Podcast Data[19:14] Looking At My YouTube Channel Numbers[22:25] Connect The Dots[23:28] Ways I'm Looking At MonetizingNotable QuotesI always tell my clients direct traffic is really a result of your brand awareness. If people know about you, they're going to directly enter your name and the URL, your website name, they're going to bookmark your site and what have you. So that number to me is very positive. But that's why, you know, social media was never made for website traffic generation. And we're going back to the early days of what social media was about just exposure, brand awareness. And the social platforms are more and more built for that, you know, short form video is about keeping people on the platform longer, and not having clickable content. I know that email is the key to getting a business and building a deeper relationship with my community.Inbound marketing truly works. It's not just creating content for website traffic sake. It's creating targeted content that drives targeted conversions.When you look at your numbers like this, it becomes pretty clear that directs that you need to go. And I'm hoping that that serves as a or these numbers, you know, without giving you too specific numbers, serve as a Northstar, and maybe help clarify or help you better understand the numbers that you're seeing.At some point, you need to connect the audience that you have, with the products and services that you sell, with the actual money that you earn. We're not doing digital marketing for the sake of doing digital marketing. We're not in college, doing a research project on how to generate more website traffic. This is our livelihood. I think people really want to, well, they really want to go at their own pace. So it'll be interesting to see it's another experiment, but if you don't experiment you never know.Links MentionedEpisode 298Episode 299Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Not every company is on board the TikTok train yet, but after listening to this episode, you will see TikTok in an entirely new way.Meet Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, a doctor who specializes in a rare disease of the eye called keratoconus who started posting on TikTok during covid and now has become a bonafide TikTok influencer with more than 3 million followers!Why did he start posting on TikTok?And what did he start posting on TikTok? And what is his advice for you?You'll have to listen in for the details!Key Highlights[02:08] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler[06:58] From Being Surgeon's Surgeons to Social Media Influencer[11:43] The Process of Offering Advice and Inspirations[14:18] What Made Dr. Brian Write Book About Social Media[16:35] Dr. Brian's Recommendation on Posting for Maximum Impact[20:51] Thought Process on Publishing Content[25:01] Pitfalls to Avoid in Social Media[29:14] Final Thoughts[29:48] Connect With Dr. BrianNotable QuotesThat was really what became my mission to help people. But what I guess led to my videos doing so well is that there's a huge need for accurate information. And that's why my account and everything kind of took off from there.I had so much information between what I've learned and what I shared, and the other 15 influencers that I interviewed, that were really gracious to open up and share what they've learned, the good and the bad, and the school of hard knocks to get to where they were. And that chapter is really a key one for people who do want to embrace social media and understand how to grow their platform, and especially how to grow it in a responsible way.I think you have to look at each platform individually, because they have their own algorithms. Being able to balance it and not, you know, get too hooked in and lose track of the important things in life, which are relationships with other people, friends and family, you know, your jobs, you know, being able to achieve what you want to achieve and not start spending so much time on the platforms. So for parents, it becomes even more critical to be involved in how to be involved to help your kids stay safe, and not go off that deep end, which they're the most likely and most vulnerable to a whole chapter called Living with social media that's actually giving, you know, adults and parents and also teenagers, you know, that read the book, the benefits, but without the downsides.Social media is like fire, it could be used for illumination, or you could badly burn yourself.Guest Links:Follow Dr.  Wachler on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brianboxerwachlermdBuy Influenced: The Impact of Social Media on Our Perception on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VOqHro (affiliate)Links Mentioned:My Cohort Based CoursesLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

TikTok. Instagram Reels. YouTube Shorts. You've heard the buzz around them, and you know that is where social media users are spending the most time consuming content today.Short form video has transformed from its earliest days of just being about trending dances on TikTok to being a place where people go looking for information. If you have children or know any GenZ youth, ask them what they have learned from being on TikTok. You might be surprised as to the center of information discovery that short form video platform has become.So as we embark on 2023 the question is not whether you should or shouldn't do short form video, but more as to when and how to get started.I just got started myself, and I hope this episode inspires you to do the same!Key Highlights[04:31] Where The Trend of Short Form Began[06:13] TikTok As A Search Engine[07:46] Data Points[09:44] Why You Should Have A TikTok Centric Perspective[10:20] Find Role Models[12:08] What I Have Learned So Far[19:44] Phases of TikTok[20:47] My RecommendationsNotable QuotesNow everybody's on Instagram, and we are starting to see the shift on Tik Tok, there is more I would say, millennial based content or content for a little bit older of a crowd than Gen Z. And this really excites me because this content is more on the educational side. And in fact, if you've been reading the news,you would know that tick tock is fast becoming a search engine. And when social media becomes a search engine, it becomes important for businesses and marketers to begin to reconsider the value of those platforms.One of the concepts I teach is find a role model, find someone that you can emulate, you can be inspired by find someone that looks like is serving a similar audience to you, and is getting engagement is getting followers. And that will prove that your audience is there. TikTok is where the trends are happening. TikTok is becoming more educational in nature. It's becoming more like a search engine. And now I think you see the opportunities are opening up. Find role models do searches, you don't have to do hashtag searches, do searches for relevant topics, I think you're going to find what we would call talking head videos. Editing is one really, really important part. The other important part is to understand that every short form video must have one idea. If this is entertaining. It's another story. If you're going for the educational, you still need to be entertaining. Episodes MentionedEpisode 267Episode 282Episode 293Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

One of the core tools that most marketers use to measure their ROI, Google Analytics, is undergoing its first major revision in more than a decade.From beginners to experts, learn what these changes mean to you and how you can best prepare for them in this interview with Google Analytics expert Chris Cheetham-West.Key Highlights[06:28] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Chris Cheetham-West[08:28] Chris's Marketing Journey[11:02] How to Utilize Google Analytics 4[15:58] Universal Analytics vs Google Analytics 4 [18:47] New Definition of Engaged Rate and Engaged Viewer[22:09] Google Analytics 4 Integration for E-commerce[25:04] Chris's Advice on How to Save Time Inside Google Analytics 4[27:57] Making Better Decisions with Data[30:39] Final Advice on Google Analytics 4[32:10] Connect with ChrisNotable QuotesGoogle probably realized that, hey, people are using goals are not using it effectively enough. But everybody that has a website most likely have a goal. So now that's going to be more of a central part of Google to explore versus just like a small piece, it was in Universal Analytics.And it's one of those things where, after a few months, we're gonna realize that this is a better tool to use. And I'm getting to know my customer a little bit more.The message I want to say is like, there's always a faster way to get to the data that you're trying to find.Be intentional about looking at what's going on and making those changes. So make those decisions on a monthly basis, maybe even a weekly basis to optimize. So don't forget to optimize, not just look at the data, but optimize and see how you can get better.So those are all things that you want to consistently do weekly or monthly basis to make sure you're really getting the most out of the data? Because it gives you so much information. All you got to do is look at it and then take action.Right now is the time to play around with GA 4 so right now is like, look into events, if you're not able to use the advanced, you've ever used goals before looking to it, but the old analytics get used to these things that are going to change.In that case, just make sure you are playing around with it, spend an hour a week on it hour a day even just to get ready, and just to understand it, so that way, you can be ready for the change.Guest Links:Chris' Website: https://chrisnwest.com/Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/speakerchrisnwest/ Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

One of the most impactful marketing concepts that I know and teach is this one: Your community is always a subset.While originally geared towards explaining influencer marketing, it actually should be used to better understand our entire approach to digital marketing and help equip us with a growth mindset.Key Highlights[02:57] Community As A Subset of Your Potential[03:27] Examples of Having Community As Subset of Your Potential[06:59] Go Outside Your Current Community[08:37] Learning Items from Launching My Second Digital Product[09:54] Building A Bigger, Organic Community[10:27] The ROI of Organic[12:35] Get Your People On Your Email List![13:16] Keep Everything in BalanceNotable QuotesYour community is always a subset is something that I talked about in the age of influence. It's a concept that I think really illustrates the value of influencer marketing.They have a huge community. But it's always a subset of its potential. And when you work with influencers, you come in with a voice of trust that introduces you to this audience that trusts and respects the person talking about the brand, which is the influencer.In order to grow your business, yes, you can tap into your current customers and try to upsell them. But for many companies, you can only get so far, and growth goals usually mean that they exceed those. So what this means is you got to go outside of your current community. And it's more than just influencer marketing.No matter how big my community is, my community is always as a subset as well as to who else is out there.You begin to see this not only funnel approach of bringing people into your community, but also the fact that you need multiple touches in order to at the end of the day, build like no interest and close the deal.No matter how much we're creating Instagram reels or Tik Tok videos or blog posts, or whatever social media we do. We should not be happy with the community we build knowing that it's always a subset even for bigger brands, building that organic community is part of what we do. But we also equally have to go outside of that to always be building a bigger community.We need to keep it all it's the Yin Yang, right, we need to keep it all in balance. And we can't be complacent with one of the three because we need to do all the three. But we always need to be building those multiple touches, knowing that at the end of the day, that is going to be what's going to convert.Links MentionedEpisode 295Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

While we have covered a lot about influencer marketing on this podcast, there is one facet that we haven't looked at: The cost-effectiveness of influencer marketing.As we head towards a potential recession in 2023 and marketing budgets are tight, this becomes even more important. That's why on this episode we will focus on why influencer marketing is such a great marketing investment when budgets are tight.Topics we will cover include:Why Influencer Marketing is the most flexible form of marketing investment through payment, product gifting, mentions, and moreThe value of more authentic and relatable content to spend on vs. advertising push done directly by youThe fact that during a recession, people turn toward trusted voicesInfluencers as affiliates = Measurable ROI + Massive ReachKey Highlights[02:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Nisarg Shah[04:30] How Nisarg Got Into Influencer Marketing[06:22] The Gaps Nisarg Found In Influencer Marketing in 2017[09:08] Influencer Marketing's Flexibility[13:25] How Influencer Marketing Can Help Brands Into Recession[19:22] Affiliate Marketing in Affable.ai Tool[22:35] The Hybrid Structure of Influencers and Affiliates[26:35] Reasons Why Third-Party Platforms Still Add Value[29:33] Best Practices in Influencer Marketing Industry[31:46] Connect with Nisarg[32:21] Affable.ai Price PointNotable QuotesThe value you get from a creator is much more. And in this in these uncertain times. Brands are definitely kind of going back to the creators they trust and the creators they have a long-standing relationship with.People typically tend to trust other people. And that's just our nature, that's word of mouth. I trust you because you talk about something. Entity pushing me a product. So just marketing works, because we trust people who are creating this content. And in these times, influencer, marketing works even better, because now, users are careful about who they trust, and they turn towards trusted advisors.I think who we trust online has really evolved. at the end of the day, this raw and real content and the people behind it, those seem to be the ones that we trust more right? Than those shiny looking, whether they're an ad or they're like a shiny looking mega celebrity influencer.  Influencers are amazing affiliates because they give you both gives you an ability to reach massive, massive scale, even if people don't die, but at the same time, they give you an ability to convert.If you are a brand, and you're listening to this and planning to work with influencers, certain guidelines, but let them come up with the content, because they know what resonates with their followers, the best, and different influencers would have a different tone and message that they know works best. Guest Links:Affable.ai: https://www.affable.ai/Connect with Nisarg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisarg259/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Unplugging for a week being sick gave me a chance to reimagine my own social media marketing for the new year. The truth is, when it comes to social media, many businesses continue to do the same old same old even as content consumption tastes change. Social media content creation also requires the resources of time and money, so here is how I recommend you get the biggest bang for your social media marketing buck in the new year.Key Highlights[03:41] Changes That I Am Going to Take in Social Media[04:15] The Concept of Content Curation[06:29] The Analysis That I Did[09:33] What Kind of Pins Work Best?[13:58] Reducing the Volume of Content, But Increasing the Quality[17:04] You Don't Need to Go Overboard[17:33] Reasons Why You Need to Use YouTube Shorts More[18:38] The Quality of An Instagram Reel[19:09] My Strategy on TikTok That I RecommendNotable QuotesLess is more. Aim for impact with every piece of content. If your content is not impactful, don't worry about it. You don't have to share it even.Social media is not just about traffic, it's still where we need to be to be found to be seen to build community.Pinterest, scaled down the static pin creation, just there's not that big of a need for it, scale up the idea pin.I don't need to publish 24 hours on Twitter only publish when my audience most of my audience is online. That is another step I'm taking to reduce the volume of content but increase the quality by it my own perspective.I think you're going to be seen more often in the feed so that when you do publish a link posts, maybe one in every three posts is linked, and one is a selfie, and one is a video, that might be a great a really great way to really shake up that content. But make it impactful, make it your own voice, your own perspective.I believe that trending audios this could be music, these could be voices or sounds. This is the SEO of tick tock that when there's trending audio, if you create something with that trending audio, you have, on average a better chance of being seen by more people than just recording your own voice.Focus more on the quality, your unique perspective, and less on that frequency.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you giving your content the attention it deserves? Do you create a video, podcast, or blog post, and then forget about it after its done. Meet Amy Woods, the queen of content repurposing, who is going to help you get MORE from ALL of your content than you might have thought possible!In this episode you will learn:Repurposing video is easy(er). What are the best practices in repurposing blog content?The trend towards vertical video repurposing, even in B2B virtual eventsHow to best repurpose short-form video across different channelsWhy tapping into memes is so important for repurposing short-form contentKey Highlights[03:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Amy Woods[06:44] How Amy Got Into Content Repurposing[13:14] Best Practices in Repurposing Videos[20:58] Less Is More Approach[21:41] Latest Trends in Repurposing Content[27:02] Amy's Thoughts on YouTube Shorts[30:33] Repurposing Is Not Just About Reposting[37:42] Should You Post the Same Content On All Your Social Platforms?[42:15] Tapping Into Memes[46:22] Focusing On RelatabilityNotable QuotesWhen we look at what is repurposing so I always define it, as it's finding these different ways to communicate the message within a core piece of content in different formats. And for different online platforms to reach and connect with a broader range of your audience.It's all about, you know, a less is more approach.So think with it being a search engine, first and foremost, it is a search engine. But when you add that it becomes a bit more of a kind of hybrid of more social, more searched, a bit like Twitter, really, for the younger generation, well for all generations, really, but just how things are changing. Repurposing isn't just reposting. It's not just cutting and pasting, you can't just create one thing for all the platforms, you've got to be respectful of the platforms, and why people are there and create platform specific content.It really comes down to really understanding your audience. Understanding them as best you can get in there and speak to them like the most engaged members of your audience.I think whatever you commit to it's not a commitment it's always a testing, an experiment, it's not a long-term commitment to give things a go and just give them enough time to actually get real data and see if it was a good move or notGuest Links:Content10X: https://content10x.comContent 10X Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-content-10x-podcast/id1294442001Connect with Amy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/ Find out more about my influencer marketing strategy cohort course here: https://nealschaffer.com/maven1Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I’ve talked a lot about influencer marketing over the past several years, both on this podcast and in my book, “The Age of Influence.” The practice of influencer marketing has changed since 2019 and 2020, when I wrote that book. For that reason, we need to look at the current influencer marketing trends if our campaigns and techniques are to remain successful. Let’s take a look at why influencer marketing is effective and what trends we can expect to develop over the next year.Key Highlights[08:01] True Long-Term Influencer Partnerships[09:27] Authenticity Over Perfection[11:10] Think Video First[11:47] Emergence of Live Shopping[12:43] Nano Micro-Influencers As Forefront[14:10] The Growth of Influencer Marketplace[15:50] The Concept of Frist Party Data[18:54] Affiliate Marketing As A Critical Part of Influencer Marketing[20:38] Employees As New InfluencersNotable QuotesThe more you hear people talking about the Creator economy, the more that you should understand influencer marketing is relevant. Because the more we value creators, the more we value influencers, because at the heart of it, most creators either are or become influencers. For something like collaborating with influencers and content creators, there should not be an on off switch, it should be long term. You should try to understand the way the influencer feels it would be best done it would be most authentic, because invariably that is going to get you the best results. It's not about how many followers you have necessarily, it's about how good your content is. And the algorithm is pushing the content. If you plan on investing 5, 10% of your marketing there, you want to acquire a lot of first party data. Only way to do that is to do more and more work with influencers and properly measure it right and then reflect on that measurement and optimize over time. Links MentionedMy Digital CourseEpisode 251Episode 241Episode 289Episode 265Nano Influencers BlogLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

While not as popular as blogging, YouTube, or social media, podcasting still continues to grow and has tremendous value for those that get it and use it right. Whether you are a current podcaster or are thinking of launching a new podcast, this episode is a virtual masterclass of best practices in:why you might consider starting your own podcastwhat is the minimal equipment you need to get startedhow to technically get starteddo you need a special "launch" plan for your podcast or nothow to promote your podcast once its launchedKey Highlights[02:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Tom from Podcastpage.io[05:54] How Tom Start Getting Into Podcasting[08:30] Why Should You Start A Podcast[14:14] Steps You Need To Do In Starting Podcast[26:58] The Other Things You Should Be Aware of For A Successful Podcast Launch[29:14] Quality Over Quantity[31:17] Best Practices in Promoting Podcast[38:31] Key Features of Podcastpage.io That Will Help You Promote Your Podcast[47:32] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesThe best in my opinion, is just to kind of like and enjoy the process. That's the the best part of of your decision to start a podcast. So at the end of the day, there are many, many different things you can kind of get from it, whether that was the initial goal or not, but you can meet a lot of different people through networking. If you don't know where to start with content, I almost think that you start with a podcast.At the beginning, we said that consistency is key to pretty much business marketing, podcasting, and sports, almost everything. So just keep going and don't kind of leave it after two or three episodes. If you are to start one, you know, just by continuing, you're gonna find success. We talk in marketing a lot about being consistent, I think, with podcasts, and it really does make a difference.A podcast is a great way if you're looking to create content.And to me, I guess the the most important thing here is to to produce quality content. You don't need to have this massive subject that doesn't doesn't give the listeners enough value. Just make sure you have the the right content and put all your efforts into it.There are a lot of different things you could use to actually bring a better experience and a better you know, just improve your listeners experience, that's the probably the bottom line. And then you also have a direct channel with them. Keep releasing quality content and be consistent. And that's probably the bread and butter of you know, podcasting. Guest Links:PodcastPage.io: https://podcastpage.ioLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Monetizing your knowledge by creating and selling digital products is not as easy as the experts make it out to be. I want to share with you my own experiences and how I view setbacks as a painful but necessary step to find success in order to inspire you to continue your digital entrepreneurial journey as I am continuing mine.Key Highlights[02:28] My pre-launch survey[03:42] How I Define Digital Entrepreneur[05:03] The Social Media Marketing Buffet[06:25] You Are What You Tweet[07:44] What I've Learned In The Process of Launching Digital First[08:08] Why You Need Data[10:40] It's Not About the Follower Count[12:51] Cohort-Based Learning[16:30] Why I Like Taking Funnel Approach[20:12] The Kind of Mindset I Want You to HaveNotable QuotesThis is the social media marketing buffet. We have appetizers, we have main dishes, we have desserts, we have drinks, and everybody is going to consume things slightly differently. And I think when it comes to education, we've seen this democratization of things of choices that people have.I consider myself sort of the Doctor of digital, like whatever pain whatever suffering whatever illness you have, let me find the digital marketing cure whether it's, you know, digital, social content, influence what have you.You need to do it to learn it. No matter how much you visualize things or create plans, it's going to come down to the data.What I realized is if you're going to do something, you need to be in it for the long haul. But if you're going to cut it short, you cut it short.So one learning is, even if you think you fail, because you set yourself up for failure by thinking that you are going to get these big numbers based on a big following. The numbers of followers don't really count, obviously, yes, they give you a platform. But you can convert 10% of a 100 person community, or convert 1% of a 100% community. And the results are going to be very different.It's not the follower count. It's the relationships that you have with the people that at the end is going to propel your business.It's not about getting the seven figures, or six figures or whatever the number ASAP. It's about longevity. And it's about deepening the relationship with my biggest fans. And those are the ones investing in me.If you really want to become a digital entrepreneur, you want to become part of this creative economy. You need to find a way to make it work. You're going to fail nine times you're going to learn and when you succeed the 10 time it's going to be all for the better.Links Mentioned:Maven SurveyEpisode 270Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The heart of influencer marketing is collaboration. And at the heart of collaboration are content creators. A slight change in how you see influencer marketing can have a significantly positive effect on how you can collaborate to help build your brand.In this episode you will learn:Yash's 6-step-system for influencer marketing successInfluenceR vs. Influence "no R" marketing - how to actually influence your buyersA more holistic approach to creator-driven growth - how to leverage "influencers" beyond just social media posts. Key Highlights[06:12] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Yash Chavan[12:14] How Yash Started Into Influencer Marketing[15:23] Yash's Experience With Pushbacks[20:29] How Yash Found Developers and Promotion of his Tool[24:55] Yash's 6 Steps System to Influencer Marketing Success[30:22] Influencer VS Influencer Marketing[35:24] Creator-Led Growth Concept by Yash[38:19] What SARAL Tool Can Do for You[39:36] SARAL Free TrialNotable QuotesIt's about re-education. So I think people have just been misguided by I think stemming from all the way from the Kardashians to like now smaller influencers, just promoting any product that pays them money to say a certain thing. And I'm seeing that from both ends now kind of changing, where creators are more selective with the brands they work with. If you're like strategizing all the time, you're not I think a lot of learning just happens on the fly. For me at least that's how I learned. But going through outreach, focus on giving, not on taking.Manifests itself into working with the right kind of advocates as opposed to, you know, doing payperpost deals to start. It all manifests itself in these small ways and influence again, goes even beyond social media. When you think of it from an influence perspective. You open up your like your third eye opens, your pineal gland opens up and it's like the world is much wider now on what you can do. So I also like to sometimes I switch it up between like influencer, I called Creator led growth, because it's like, it's a completely new strategy. It's a different paradigm altogether when you think of it from the influence standpoint. So we should not think of working with influencers as okay, you know, he or she is going to post about us and it's going to be an ad on their feed, it has to be like a natural integration into the content that they're trying to create.Guest Links:Saral App: https://www.getsaral.com/Connect with Yash on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yctheman/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I attended VidSummit, the largest conference for YouTube marketing and influencers, recently, and I was blown away by what I learned. I was so blown away that I felt compelled to share ALL of my takeaways with you. And because I learned a lot, this episode is my longest ever. However, if you are trying to upgrade your YouTube marketing or get started with YouTube Shorts, THIS is the episode for you!Key Highlights[05:15] Different Ways to Monetize Youtube[12:35] What Makes Good YouTube Shorts?[17:10] Good Shorts Analytics[20:17] Creating YouTube Strategy Based on Psychographics[22:44] The 4 C's[26:14] Innovating Your Content[31:13] AI Integration and Tools[37:14] Creating Systems for Content Planning, Production, and Analysis[40:58] 4 Types of Videos That You Need[42:48] 3 Stages to YouTube Growth[51:22] 2 P's of Scalability[54:59] New YouTube Partner Program[57:19] Creating Your Flywheel[01:05:52] 3 Key Tools for Creator Economy[01:06:41] Specific Strategies to Influence Viewers [01:13:23] Content, Globalization, and Trend Watching Notable QuotesYouTube really is about are people actually consuming your video, how much of your video are they consuming? YouTube is a completely different beast. But there is plenty of opportunity for all of us to take advantage of it.Start really small, start with something live, and then repurpose that into a course I actually went to an event once it was a event for speakers on how to tap into speaking opportunities at professional associations.Your superpower is your weird factor. So lean into that when creating video content really create a deep relationship with your viewers.Create a better mousetrap. You don't need to create something new. Just create something better.You need to hook your audience at the very beginning.The story should be greater than the production value, it doesn't have to be fancy. Give the audience a why take them on a journey.Look at your data, but also consume other content.Don't think about your competition, your competition is yourself.Do not care about competitors do not care about your current performance other than trying to increase your performance. But stay with goals and systems and processes are what helps you avoiding getting derailed.Perfect is boring. Being the authentic human being yourself is the most important thing to do.YouTube only succeeds when its users succeeds.Links MentionedEpisode 286Episode 281TubeBuddyvidIQLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Search engine discoverability is as important today as it has always been. SEO requires you to have resourceful and helpful content as we all know from Google's recent updates, but assuming we already have lots of great content, how can we move up the search engine rankings?While there are lots of things you can do, generating relevant backlinks to your website might be the most powerful option.In this special interview with digital marketing expert Sam Dunning, we discuss 5 different ways for which you can begin to start getting free backlinks for your website TODAY!Key Highlights[03:19] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Sam Dunning[07:35] How Sam Started In SEO Industry[09:32] Google's Content Update[12:40] The Importance of Backlinks[14:32] 5 Ways to Get Free Backlinks[20:40] The Skyscraper Technique With Outreach[23:15] Recommended Tools for Outreach[29:07] Sam's Favorite Approach[29:31] Connect With SamNotable QuotesA big part of it is understanding what your customers care about, which is kind of marketing 101, talking to your target customers, talking to your ideal clients, understanding their problems, their pain points, their goals, their ambitions, and then working that into the copy. So as long as you're doing those basics, you should be fine. Make sure when you go on a show, you can literally give genuine, actionable helpful tips that you know are going to be useful rather than talking about yourself because no one wants to hear that.What Google wants businesses to do really, basically stick in your lane. And if you create great human content that is useful, you'll be rewarded.Sometimes great content can just rank doesn't always happen. But it can, well, people can find it, and then they can start linking to it. But what you can find is there might be a snowball effect. So you might produce this awesome page that does all those best practices we've talked about, then you might have to reach out to quite a few companies that are relevant, and then one or two of those might offer you a link. And you might have to give them a sweetener in return. But then from that little boost that you've got from those links, other companies might start seeing it, maybe you've got some unique data, stash some unique data and other people start linking to it. So it builds up like a snowball effect. Think of companies that complement your industry, but aren't direct competitors.Guest Links:Sam Dunning on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samdunning/Web Choice:  https://www.webdesignchoice.co.uk/Sam's Business Growth Show Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/business-growth-show-b2b-marketing-demand-generation/id1496516404Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I was honored to be able to speak - and thus attend - Content Marketing World for the first time this year. There were a TON of golden nuggets dropped at this event that I wanted to share with you, so these are the 11 takeaways I got from all of the amazing sessions I saw that I think you should know about.Key Highlights[13:17] Developing Your Own Unique Brand Voice[15:32] The Upside Down Pyramid of Personality[22:18] Why Your Content Workflow Should Start With Live Video[25:13] 3 Recommended Tools for Live Streaming[27:20] Using Survey to Generate Multiple Content[30:51] Piloting AI for Content Marketers[38:20] Recommended Tools for AI Content[41:34] How to Drive Revenue With Podcast and Networking[43:00] Creating A Sales Strategy for YouTube That Doesn't Kill Your Channel[45:01] 3 Buckets of Content for YouTube Strategy[48:04] Designing Your Sales Funnel for the Visual Generation[51:03]  How to Reverse Engineer Your Competitors' Social Media Strategy[52:12] Effectively Work With Journalists to Gain Increased Visibility for Your Content[56:12] Tools for Your Press Release[56:56]  Google Analytics for Future Data[1:00:28] Content Repurposing[1:03:45] Create Content With Repurposing in MindNotable QuotesDon't compare yourself to your leading competitors. Compare yourself with yourself.I really put value in going deep with a number of people, the more people the better get to know them better. And that's, you know, equal to the sessions that I attend. That's what gives me a lot of value in going to these events, the in-person networking, that can happen.Each of us is capable of a memorable, relatable voice. So don't sound like everybody else on social media, do your own thing. But it's okay to be inspired. And it's okay to mimic.Look for questions from your other competitors.AI technology is not there to replace you, but to assist you. So the message is, to learn it early, be ahead of the curve, and reap the benefits. Content repurposing is finding creative ways to communicate your message in different formats, and in different locations so that you can reach and connect with more people. Different people have different appetites when it comes to content. Different people consume different content differently. And therefore we need to have everything in our buffet in order to satisfy as many people as possible.Links MentionedEpisode 271Episode 218Episode 281Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What just might be the ultimate lead magnet? An online course.  And it doesn't have to be complex to create either.Join me for this interview with Alyssa Marshall, co-founder of Owwlish. After 10 years of studying to become and becoming a dentist, Alyssa created her own online course for dentists and then used that custom technology in co-founding Owwlish as a way to help other course creators win at courses.But her technology is not only for course creators. It's for any business.As Alyssa explains in this interview, you're missing out if you don't have an online course freebie for your business. We discuss the why of this, but also:Why online courses will increase your opt-in rate - as a freebie on your website or you can run ads directly to themHow to make your online course quicklyHow to use the course to fuel the rest of your businessAfter listening to this interview you'll never think of online courses as being just for content creators again!Key Highlights[03:16] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Alyssa Marshall[05:53] How Alyssa Got Into Online Course Platform Industry[11:42] How Did Alyssa Go About Launching Her First Courses[13:53] Online Courses In A Lead Magnet Perspective[22:59] The Easiest and Fastest Way to Get An Opt-in Gift for Free[25:21] How to Use Course to Fuel Your Business[28:19] How Alyssa Structured Her Platform[35:49] Learning More About Owwlish[38:37] How to Get Started in Owwlish[39:59] Final Advice[41:21] Connect with AlyssaNotable QuotesThe advantage of a video course is that you get all of that, in one, it doesn't even have to be that complicated.But the value you get as a business owner by having an online course opt in, like over like, after a week versus after three months, because you're complicated it your business is going to be at a at a much, much better place. Show up and do your thing.It's super helpful to just gain that likability factor and trust and you have a captive audience that is not distracted with all these other videos on the site or pops up at the end of the video thing. This audience is with you and gaining a quick win while they're with you. And you can lead them to the next logical step, which is to join your coaching program or to purchase your course or whatever it is.Make sure that you lead into selling, your course is not just going to be about teaching, but the last part should at least introduce selling.The idea of owlish is that you should be able to have a beautiful looking course, even if you can't code on any page of your website that you say it should live on. So really good easy rule of thumb to think about in terms of that is the what is free, the how is paid. So tell them what to do.So don't complicate this, just give them the watts, it's okay. That way they know you know what you're talking about. And they start to really trust you and think you're a credible source of information.Guest Links:Owwlish: https://owwlish.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As we market our brands on social media, we might get asked by some of our colleagues if somehow we can promote their job openings on our channels.With the continued tight labor market, social media actually gives marketers a golden opportunity to implement inbound marketing not just for your own brand, but for your employer brand as well.Learn all about this concept of employer branding and why it is critical for marketers to understand.Key Highlights[02:47] Looking At Employer Branding[04:46] Four Types of Media[05:47] The Idea of Employee Advocacy[07:33] Case Studies[11:19] My Thoughts On Branding[13:02] How Much Can Brands Control Their Branding?[13:28] The Heart of Employer Branding[16:20] Employer Branding Statistics[18:36] The Value of Employer Branding[20:42] How Social Media Can Help in Strengthening Employer Branding[22:15] Ways to Leverage Employees As Influences for Your Employer Brand Notable QuotesEvery time we engage with a customer, every employee is in essence advocating for us, right? They're a brand ambassador. A brand is a name, term designed symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's goods or service, as distinct from those of other sellers.The goal with branding is to make sure that perception is the one, you want people to have a view.It's up to you to shape how you want people to feel you always have to be proactive about your branding, to always be sculpting in a way that you want people to consider your brand.At the end of the day, when people share experiences about your product on social media, that is often going to define our perception of your brand.Your company also has a second brand related to its primary brand about how you're viewed as an employer. This is your employer brand and it lives and breathes in the minds and hearts of your former current and future employees.Without an employer brand, and many of you may not even have one, if you've never invested in it, it becomes difficult and costly, to hire and retain the best employees and you need, you need the best employees to advance your company.So the employer brand, which is it really should talk about your reputation as well, is a living and breathing entity that you need to continually invest in both hire and retain.But the same with marketing your product, it's all about how you want to be perceived in the marketplace, and using targeted messages to attract the customers you want.Links Mentioned:Episode 215: The Unique Relationship between Employer Branding, Employee Advocacy, Personal BrandingEpisode 169: How to Leverage Your Employees as InfluencersLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Now that we are slowly coming out of the pandemic, it's time to get back to doing more things in person. Networking is one of them, and while there are still a plethora of opportunities to engage online, the same can be said for in-person events. Learn all about how to grow your business through networking from master networker and communicator Dave Delaney.Key Highlights[01:22] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dave Delaney[05:35] How Dave Got Into Networking[08:15] What Prompted Dave to Write A Book[10:46] Three Ups of Networking Nicely[12:08] How to Find Networking Events[14:48] How Events Can Help Grow Businesses[18:00] Start By Setting A Goal[20:44] How to Connect Your Business to the Event Without Being Salesly[25:27] Get Out of Your Comfort Zone[31:36] The Nice Method [38:53] Celebrating Life Outside Walls[44:13] Connect With Dave and How to Get A Copy of His BookNotable QuotesNetworking is a critical thing, not always easy to do. But there's this, there's this idea that if we do it and we do it, well, it's going to lead the business. Find an association or a group. So do a Google search or whatever for the association related to your industry specifically, and then attend their event.When you're there, you need to speak to people, so you need to meet people. And a good way to do that is just simply to ask people, you know, what brings them to that event. As you're speaking to someone, the goal is to be as quiet as possible, so that you can get to know them, and ask them follow up questions.Just showing genuine interest in other people is always going to be a positive thing.It all comes down to people don't do business with businesses, typically, they do business with humans, right? It's about building relationships first.With networking, I do believe that it really is a matter of planting seeds. So hearing your team is a big part of providing feedback, but also recognition and recognizing your team members, a lot of people quit their jobs because they don't get any recognition.It's about the reputation of your organization. And if your team members, especially leadership, are doing a poor job leading and upsetting their your team members, they quit.Guest Links:Dave Delaney (Website): https://www.davedelaney.me/Dave Delaney (LinkedIn):  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davedelaney/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Hi! My name is Neal Schaffer and I am Your Digital Marketing Coach! If you haven't subscribed yet, please listen to my trailer to find out more about what this podcast is about! You can also learn more about me here by clicking any of these links:WebsitePodcast WebsiteAmazonLinkedInTwitterFacebookInstagramYouTubePinterestLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I had an awesome time at the world's largest event dedicated to podcasters and podcasting for business: Podcast Movement 2022 in Dallas, Texas.Since you are listening to this podcast, you already know how compelling a medium podcasting can be. But what are the newest trends and technology you should be aware of if you are a content creator or looking into tapping into podcasting for your business?Look no further - just listen to my report and you'll feel as if you attended the event yourself!Key Highlights[02:23] Upcoming Marketing Conferences[04:07] What I Learned At Podcast Movement 2022[06:07] Success Is About Consistency[06:51] Podcast Statistics[08:38] 2 Best Ways to Promote Podcast[14:11] It's All About Video[16:14] Tiktok Takeaway[18:15] What Do Successful Podcasters Do?[19:21] Use Email With Your Podcast[21:35] An Interesting Shift in Podcasting[23:32] What Is Patreon?[25:32] Another Trend in Podcasting[28:29] Podcasting Is Special[30:18] How to Contact Me For Podcasting AdviceNotable QuotesIn podcasting, success is really about consistency.There's always this aspect that we need to be consistent for a period of time until we see the results. And podcasting is no different. But what I think it means for all of you if you've been thinking about a podcast, there's always never a better time. But you're never too late because most people just quit. So if you have ideas, and I urge you to map out your ideas for 10, 20, 30 episodes, and if you're going to interview people, who are those people are going to be map it out and implement. And I think going forward, you're going to hear a lot more of these ads on podcasts as more micro and nano influencer podcasters like myself, get into the action for whatever reason, but it was a reminder that advertising is really alive and well in podcasting.It might be a great way if you're thinking of doing podcasting, but also want to increase the benefits of doing so is to think video from the start not as an afterthought. And I think that'll help you actually create better videos.Leveraging your community as well, which might be the third different way to help get reviews shared on social media, whatever that specific call to action is. And whatever way you can creatively bring it up. So that it will really encourage, if not incentivize people to do that. Do you need to be everywhere? No. If you're able to be in multiple places, you can leverage that especially if you are a content creator.I started podcasting as a content marketing initiative. But it has led me to develop a really, really personal relationship with you. Even though we've never met in person. Podcasting is a unique, human-centric, medium, unparalleled with any other medium out there in terms of marketing, to allow you to connect with people over the broadest category of things. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

YouTube can be a powerful force in digital marketing when leveraged correctly. Many businesses just use YouTube as a place to upload their videos, but when used strategically, YouTube can generate video views in the thousands (if not millions) that can lead to massive business for those that get it.Joining me today is the person that I can honestly call the world's expert on YouTube marketing, author of The YouTube Formula, Derral Eves. Listening to this very special episode will give you all you need to start leveraging YouTube as a strategic marketing channel.Key Highlights[02:17] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Derral Eves[05:41] How Derral Got Into YouTube[08:09] Derral's Love and Passion for Marketing[14:06] An Example of Brand That Leveraged User Generated Content[18:10] Doing Preparatory Things[24:03] Paying Attention to YouTube Analytics Data[32:46] Getting to the Tipping Point of YouTube?[38:01] Darrel's Advice on Making Sure People Stay in Your VideosNotable QuotesThat's how I've been able to generate over 86 billion video views on YouTube and have some of the biggest successes because we focus on the viewer and that viewers journey through the video.I think that's what brands need to do I think we get so fixated on our product or service, that we miss how the product or service could be demonstrated to a wide general more of audience and really refined, and I've worked with so many businesses, that, that they have a great product, but they don't know how to explain it, they don't know how to get it out for the world, instead of saying, Look, you know, we have a great product, but how are we going to explain it in a way that brings value to people.And so a lot of this stuff comes back through creativity, but I think it goes back down to that advice is just lock yourself in a room for a couple of days and really focus on how you bring value to the general audience and how do you narrow it down to your target audience? And then how do you get the target audience to engage enough that they become your army promoting your products. We need to do more preparatory things at the beginning instead of reactionary.The more that you can resonate with your vision, mission purpose, around anything, that's where some magic can happen down the road.But I found that it takes a good solid year of consistently posting to start seeing some momentum. If you're looking at the right type of data, if you're not looking at the right type of data, or you're not bringing value to a specific viewer, and you're all over the place, it could take a millennia before you even see any progress.You can get very tactical with YouTube ads, and you can do it for very cheap to get into all the people that just watch the videos that you don't even have to serve as anyone else. Guest Links:Derral Eves: https://derraleves.com/The YouTube Formula on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/YouTube-Formula-Algorithm-Audience-Revenue/dp/1119716020 Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Regardless of whether we personally like Facebook or not, it is still one of the biggest players in social media and its presence cannot be ignored.While this episode gives you some organic Facebook marketing advice as well, most businesses use Facebook as a pay-to-play platform and reap the benefits of doing so.You're probably already running campaigns on Facebook, but I am hoping that you can find a few things to focus on from this episode.Key Highlights[02:30] Facebook Statistics[04:12] Don't Give Up On Facebook[04:55] Ways Savvy Businesses Are Using Facebook[07:30] Why Facebook Is Still the Preferred Place for Marketers to Run Paid Ads[10:44] 3 Main Campaigns Most My Clients Use for Different Purposes[12:22] Different Ways of Leveraging Audiences[16:22] Narrowing Target Audience[17:31] Leveraging Custom Audiences[18:49] Facebook Ad Library[20:59] Think Mobile First[21:59]  Speak to Pain Points and Emotions[23:11] Consider Coupons[24:44] Leverage User-Generated & Influencer-Generated Content[26:04] Test Different Ad Formats[27:44] Create Ad Funnels[29:28] Always Perform AB TestingNotable QuotesYou don't know until you have the data. And the algorithm is always changing. So I would definitely not give up on Facebook and really, going into next year really do a reset on your content strategy there. But Facebook groups are a great way to develop deeper relationships with all these people that count to your business. And that's something I just wanted to make sure that you're considering as well, if you haven't done that already, for one or multiple types of these categories of people that are important to your business.Facebook ads are there's nothing social about Facebook ads, and they don't incite word of mouth. But when done right, they obviously can bring people back to your website, you can retarget them, you can generate leads, and ultimately you can generate business from them.So lean into big data, lean into Facebook data, lead into their algorithm and start targeting purchasers are including it as another filter in the audience targeting that you're doing.Be aware of that in your ad copy and make it look like the targeting is as natural as possible. Otherwise, that campaign may just backfire against you.You create attachment through emotion. You know, when you speak to pain points, you're also trying to get people to remember that they have a need for your product as well.But we need to think of customer lifetime value. We're not thinking about the single purchase. But when we have new customers, how many times they end up purchasing from us. Optimize ad campaigns for people wherever they are in your funnel with the intention of bringing them to the next step. And always remember to turn your existing customers into brand advocatesLinks Mentioned:Top 16 Facebook Ads ToolsNew Blog PostsLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

We have been hearing more and more a out Web3 and the so-called Ownership Economy, but what does it mean and how can it concretely be applied to marketing our product?Enter Ovi Negrean, Co-Founder of the social media management tool SocialBee, who has recently launched a new product, ACE Meetings, which has integrated Web3 as a core component of its product. Learn all about this fascinating case study and see how you can put the power of Web3 to use for marketing your business!Key Highlights[02:19] Introduction to Podcast Guest, Ovi Negrean[05:40] How Ovi Got Into Software and Entrepreneurship[10:12] Launching New Product[13:02] What is Web3 Space?[17:54] The Process and Tools of Integrating A Product Into Web3[20:39] The Value of Getting Into NFT Space[24:38] Group Ownership With Ovi's Product[28:44] Co-founding Decision[30:05] Group Decision Influence[35:06] Managing The Community[37:58] What is Discord[41:06] Connect With oviNotable QuotesSocial media is just like one part of the whole marketing toolkit. And it's actually maybe depending on your profile, not even the most important part. We want to take the same approach that we did with with social be where we are offering our own flavor of something which maybe is existing, but nevertheless, we try to make it a bit better, have good customer support and good price. And try to innovate around the edges.At the end of the day as any tools, some people will use it for good and some some for bad, but I think is a tool that will definitely change the world in the upcoming years.But offering some sort of ownership to a startup will really incentivize the early adopters.I think for the community, and for that ownership and getting people more active and passionate about your product. That's really the key thing.I think the community part is, even though it's now it's web three, it's still the same type of community building. Sure, maybe the tools have changed a bit, maybe it's not Facebook groups anymore, but it's discord or telegram channels and so on. But it's still interacting with other human beings and trying to, to see what are the shared values and the shared visions that you have, why you bought or all of you came together in this, this specific community, and how you can support each other. Guest Links:SocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbee (affiliate link)Ace Meetings: https://useace.com/meetings/Ovi Negrean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ovidiunegrean/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

With the growing importance of influencer marketing, I still often get asked: Neal, how exactly do we go about finding influencers for our brand?While there are tools that can definitely help you, hear me out as I explain how to search for influencers yourself using the social networks themselves.This episode is actually a snippet from a new class I am teaching at UCLA Extension on influencer marketing. Hope you enjoy it!Key Highlights[02:08] How I Teach Influencer Marketing[03:29] How to Find Influencers[05:55] Where to Begin Your Influencer Search[07:33] Performing A Search In Facebook[08:48] Finding Different Niches Within the Same Niche[11:35] Performing A Search in LinkedIn[12:29] Influencer Search in Pinterest[14:08] The Core of Influencer Marketing[14:58] 99-1 RuleNotable QuotesIn other words, if we're looking at a week's worth of Hawaii travel tips, or maybe the last 20 posts, maybe there's two or three accounts that are getting 70% of the engagement. Those are the people obviously that have a majority share a voice. And those are the people we might want to consider for influencer marketing campaign. So maybe as part of our campaign, we want to go deep with some of the Hawaii travel people. But also we want to leverage some of the general travel people. These are the things that as influencer marketers we begin to think about when we create campaigns and we begin to decide who are the influencers we want to work with.So we might want to consider partnering with them as well, if we think the podcast audience is relevant to our target demographic, so lots of different ways to find influencers, there's not one right or wrong way. But this gives you a collection of tools that you can use to begin to discover who are the people talking about a certain subject, and therefore who are the people that we might want to partner with or collaborate with, because they have the ear or the eyes of all these people or you know, watching videos, listening to podcast, watching reels, social media posts, they have their attention.And that is really the core of influencer marketing of leveraging these people that have other people's attention so that those other people can learn more about our brand and products.Well, there are when you get to a certain subjects, there aren't that many people that are creating content around those subjects. And therefore, you really want to treat them as influencer royalty, even if they don't have a million followers, because there just aren't that many people that are talking about that subject online.But the core fact is that people are influenced by people because they follow them for a reason. And often that follow begins with a search. So take advantage of that.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I always talk about how social media can and should be used by businesses for more than just mere "promotion" or advertisement - there's nothing social about an ad, even if it is appearing on a feed in a social network.While I tend to talk about social media as being a place to collaborate with influencers, it is equally a critical arena that gives you the ability to deepen relationships with your own customers.Customer experience marketing expert Stacy Sherman joins me for this interview where she goes into the different ways brands can leverage social media to deepen customer relationships.Key Highlights[02:56] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Stacy Sherman[06:53] Stacy's Journey to Customer Experience[10:47] Stacy's Advise to Companies That Are Ready to Leverage Customer Experience[12:54] How to Start Customer Experience Audit[15:46] It's All About Response[18:11] The Power of Connection[24:15] Recommended Tools for Competitive Research[34:08] Connect with StacyNotable QuotesYou have to validate what you're doing, what you've designed, does it really meet their needs? And then you fix those gaps, or pain points, sometimes those arise. Response time is essential, because people are watching, and noticing how fast you solve their problem or offer help, even if it's to take it offline. People are watching and so they create a perception of you as a company based on that.That's what customer experience is. It's a feeling that you get that makes you keep coming back.Use social media very carefully for influencing decisions and influencing thought leadership, not selling.I see more companies actually leaning into their staff to have a voice and using it as a way to empower them to advocate for the brand in an authentic way but not selling. It's, it's coming across with sincerity those that are doing it right. And I think it is a powerful marketing tool, and a way to also increase engagement organically.I encourage people to play around, figure out your voice. And keep in mind what we're talking about here, don't come at it as bragging, come at it as take content, you see others talking about and repurpose it reshard with your own commentary. That's, that's influential, that's leadership. Make sure you're using social media to actually get the voice of I guess its customers, prospects, your audience.Guest Links:Doing CX Right: https://doingcxright.com/Doing CX Right Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/doing-cx-right-podcast/id1573754741Stacy Sherman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysherman/Links Mentioned:Customer Experience Marketing: Why You Must Embrace It to Stand Out as a Business [Dan Gingiss Interview]: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com/138-customer-experience-marketing-why-you-must/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The title of this podcast episode should not have surprised you. The question is, are you still doing social media marketing the same way you have been doing it for years?It's time to change.I had the opportunity to attend the recent Meta Boost Small Business Studios event in Detroit, Michigan, and it was an excellent reminder both of the need to adjust and adapt our social media marketing strategy as well as an indication of how Meta promotes its social networks (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) to small business owners.Listen in for my recap, and hopefully, you will begin the walk on the road of adjustment today.Key Highlights[01:39] Different Things You Need to Do in Digital Marketing[3:00] The 2 Big Takeaways from Meta Boost Event[05:19] Start Publishing Reels![07:42] The Focus on Mobile[09:24] Boost Option[09:40] Meta Blueprint[10:18] Meta Boost US[14:09] Messaging Tools Provided by Meta[14:33] The Standard Functionalities of Meta Messaging Tools[16:33] Great Case Studies on Messaging[20:27] Instagram Stories vs Reels[21:54] How to Create Eye-Catching Images[22:52] Stage Your Page[29:09] The Three Rs in Creating Reels[32:20] Built-In Transition Effects on Reels[36:02] Different Content Buckets[37:58] 5 Things You Can Starts Doing Today According to MetaNotable QuotesBut regardless, if you're publishing an Instagram, and you're not publishing reels, you really got to ask yourself, when you're going to start to publish reels, I know it takes time to learn them. I do believe if you consume enough of the content on social media and your students, you can begin to discern the patterns. And you can learn how to replicate that for yourself.And if you want to go all in on reels, you need to be mobile first. And now they have developed an application that allows you to be mobile first and how you manage everything. And this is where we think about well, if we're able to message effectively with our customers, it helps us build relationships with them and when new customers.The world is changing, social media is changing, communication is changing. But is your communication strategy changing is really the question here.Instagram is like your gym for creativity. So bring your creativity to Instagram, in your reels, experiment with music drops, and creative tools, even tools like remix, to stand out. And you know what if you do not have the creativity, or the skills to do it, either learn or hire someone who does.So it's about keeping people on the platform. It's about encouraging you. And it's about rewarding those that create reels with greater discoverability, greater visibility, what you do with it comes down to your creativity, your content, and your audience. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Search engine optimization is still a golden opportunity for most companies, but many are still making the same mistake of ignoring a critical piece of the puzzle: Keyword research.In this episode, we are going to go deep on SEO - and keyword research - with special guest Hilary Angrove, Director of Growth and Operations at Make Your Mark Today. She will help us all understand:The intent of the search determines how you should rank for the keyword. 'Money' keywords are terms your audience is actually using (not necessarily industry words) with high volume and high intentDo not start a blog if you find money keywords - > make evergreen pagesIf you don't have money keywords --> you may want to start a blog or you may to put your resources into other forms of marketing and not SEOI think you will enjoy this holistic view on SEO as much as I did!Key Highlights[01:23] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Hilary Angrove[03:42] Hilary's Journey to Digital Marketing[09:48] Keyword Research As An SEO Pillar[12:05] Search Intent[12:54] Warming Up the Buying Journey [17:58] How Hilary Determine Keyword Difficulty[20:30] Things to Consider in Keyword Research and Intent[28:47] Non-Seo Form of Marketing You Can Invest ToNotable Quotes What I loved about SEO was just the analytical part of it. And it is a puzzle, the whole thing is a puzzle. And if you can figure out that puzzle, then you can make your client a lot of money, which is great.Google is the judge. But you also got to stay true to yourself. And that is, don't do everything for the judge. They'll see through it, you got to be true to yourself.SEO just mimics real life, your website, your web pages, they're your storefront. And so you just need to operate your store in a way that's like clean, organized, informational, useful, and people are gonna love it.So first thing that I do whenever I'm working with a client, is I build a customer persona. So who is their ideal client, whether that be and you want to look at who's the current client, I mean, a lot of people have already done this for all types of marketing.Go deep on that keyword research, and really look at that intent.You really want to bring it as close to your it's a keyword that matters to you. It's a money keyword, you want it to be as close to your homepage as possible, because you're essentially flagging to Google, hey, this is super important. Guest Links:Learn More about Make Your Mark Today: https://www.makeyourmarktoday.ca/Grab Your Free Personalized Google Ranking Mini-Guide:  https://www.makeyourmarktoday.ca/Connect with Hilary on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/hilaryangroveLinks Mentioned:Influencer Marketing for SEOLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Have you ever heard your child, or a child that you know, say they want to become an influencer? A YouTuber? A TikToker?You'd be surprised as to how often I hear this.How should you respond?While a knee-jerk reaction might be to shield your child from anything and everything social media, I recommend you look at the whole picture. Here are my thoughts on the subject - and even if you don't have a kid I think you'll find this short and sweet episode interesting!Key Highlights [02:10] My Advice I Give to Parents Whose Children Want to Become Influencers[04:08] Strategize With Your Kids[04:46] Handling Privacy Issue[05:26] Core Skills Your Kid Can Learn By Being An Influencer[06:55] Instilling Sense of Confidence and Achievement[09:03] Empowering New Generation With Skill SetNotable QuotesBecause I think a lot of parents really freak out about their children wanted to become an influencer, I don't want you to freak out about it, I want you to celebrate it. And I want you to encourage it. And I don't want you to raise a child or foster something that is going to be disingenuous or what have you. But there are a lot of life skills that can be learned from the process of trying to become an influencer. Skills that not only will help children in life, but I also believe they're going to help them in their school.So the advice I always give is, look, there's a lot of things that kids can be involved in, wanting to become an influencer is not a bad thing. Right? I think it requires guidance, some management. But at the end of the day, if they really want to become an influence, well, what do you want to become an influencer in you can actually start this conversation about niches, really, really early on in life with your kids.I think that actually trying to become an influencer gives you the excuse to work with your children to try to find these unique attributes to their personalities, to their experiences.It begins this effective, it doesn't matter if they become an influence or not. They start to acquire literacy in digital marketing. And that is huge. Now later in life before they're in university, when they're still in high school, they can apply to internships, where they can actually help local nonprofits, local businesses.And I believe it instills children with a sense of confidence, a sense of achievement, obviously, for their own brand wanting to become an influence, it's one thing, but leveraging those core skills for others, is where they really learn about themselves. I believe they gain confidence.You should be able to give opportunity to these children, you can help them and they can help you.So the next time you hear your child or someone's child talking about wanting to become an influencer, Don't roll your eyes. Look at the potential positives. I mentioned. There's negatives, the privacy issue, I get it right. There are ways around it, but encourage, let them learn those skills that will really help them and you hopefully, if you play your cards right or if you have that need or a friend's business, I mean it will be helpful. It is an absolute Win, win win.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Have you thought about how little control we have over the consumer or buyer these days?With so many sources of information, a distaste for ads, and the popularity of social media, how does a company try to control the buyer's journey and buying cycle?You can't. But if you embrace that fact, you'll find a whole world of possibility in marketing to a new generation of millennial buyers and influencers as well as transforming prospects and customers into your own sales team.This fascinating interview with the author of The Revenue Zone: The Ultimate Playbook for The Next Generation of B2B Sales, Marketing and Predictable Revenue Growth, Tom Burton, will have you building our own yellow brick road in no time - and finding success in the digital and social media marketing of today.Key Highlights[01:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Tom Burton[07:53] The Revenue Zone Defined[14:09] The Three Rules on Engagement With Younger Audience[16:21] Managing Expectations and Budget[18:07] The Yellow Brick Road[20:10] Building Library of Content[21:25] Filling In Your Potholes[30:29] Tom's Message for Small Business Owners[32:25] Lead Smart Tool[38:21] Connect With TomNotable QuotesAnd we can be in control, but we have to be in control in a much different way than we have done in the past and how we control things, right.You have to change your mindset to embrace the fact that the millennial or the buyer is in control of their own journey.Enable the buyer to facilitate their own journey, don't keep putting up gates, don't keep putting up things that then you know, that get you back into control.So we have to look at our KPIs differently. And again, but we're all going back to that same goal of having people in the revenue zone, right, we wanted people in the revenue zone before we start that. We don't want people in their prospects on the revenue zone.But whether you're an SDR and AE or whatever your role is, as a salesperson, you're, you're still very valuable. In fact, you're more valuable than ever, but you need to be valuable as a guide, and a trusted adviser versus a salesperson. We have to control the process differently. And we have to control that depth process by understanding where the buyer is in their journey. And then helping them and facilitating them based on where they are in that journey. Guest Links:Learn More about The Revenue Zone: https://www.therevenuezone.com/LEADsmart Technologies CRM: https://www.leadsmarttech.com/Connect with Tom Burton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tburton5350/The Revenue Zone on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Zone-Generation-Marketing-Predictable/dp/B09ZD2TQ3T/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I recently did a 1/2 day training for a client that uncovered a plethora of unique opportunities which I want to share with you in this episode.A product-centric approach to social media marketing can yield effective results at many levels.When taking a product marketing perspective on how an organization can best promote their products, you will uncover new opportunities to leverage personal branding, content, and yield more influence than you might have found possible.Listen in for the details and how all of these aspects of digital and social media marketing can work together in harmony.Key Highlights[03:22] How Do We Get the Word Out of Your Product?[03:57] Talk About your Product![04:36] The Different Elements You Need to be Successful in Social Media[05:33] The Concept of Influence[06:00] Valuing Employee Influencers[07:30] Help Your Employees Create Personal Brands Aligned with their Expertise[08:04] Resources that Will Help You Optimize Your Profile[10:30] The Concept of Publishing Content for Influence and Thought Leadership[10:59] What is Thought Leadership?[11:28] How Does Publishing Your Perspective Create Influence?[14:32] How Often Should You Publish Content?[15:02] Types of Content You Can Publish on a Daily BasisNotable QuotesAnd on a website, sure, you're going to have your dedicated resources and content for your product. When it comes to social media, you're fighting with all the other products for attention.Too often we think of ourselves as a company, when we should think of ourselves as a product, people are not buying the company, they're buying the product. So everything that we do, ideally, should be talking about.And once we understand the importance of social media, we understand the importance of content in social media. It is the currency of not just social media, but digital media in general.There is a very distinct relationship between influence content, and social media, you establish a presence in social media, you begin to publish content, and share your views or talk about a product around a certain niche, so to speak, and over time, that helps you build influence on that topic.So if you're thinking, Yeah, we have people in our business, that should be more in the spotlight, they should be more active and social, they should be just more naturally talking about what they're an expert in, because it's going to help our business.And the thought leadership content shows your subject matter expertise, it ideally promote your company, it speaks to potential customers, and industry partners. And indirectly, it should sell your product, the engagement type of content, shows your human side promotes your personal brand, it speaks to your broader network and connections, who might not necessarily be interested in your product. It sells you that your company, and it gets broader engagement.Links Mentioned: Episode 258Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Artificial intelligence is forecasted to have trillions of dollars of impact on businesses and the economy.Yet many marketers struggle to understand what it is and how to apply it in their marketing efforts. The truth is,  AI possesses the power to change everything.If you're in marketing, you need to invest in better understanding AI. Begin with this interview with Paul Roetzer, author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business.Key Highlights[02:17] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Paul Roetzer[03:50] How Paul Start Getting Interested in AI and Marketing[06:10] What is Quantum Computing[08:05] Individual Use Case for AI[11:53] What You Can Do to Leverage AI[14:02] AI Tools in Marketing, Sales, and Influencer Marketing[16:57] Leveraging Anonymous Data Across Clients[19:57] 3 Areas That You Should Start Focusing[23:47] The Pitfalls of Marketers With AI Technology[28:36] Final Advice[29:40] Connect with PaulNotable QuotesI mean, yeah, AI is language. It is vision technology, like dolly to was a big thing in April open release dolly to which could generate images, it's deepfake videos, it's like all these things you hear about. But at its core, machine learning is the primary subset of AI. And what machine learning does is it takes data in inputs, and it makes predictions generates outputs.Everything we do is trying to predict behavior outcomes, and then you actually start to realize all the potential that AI has to transform what we do every day.Data is an essential element of making AI work for you as a marketer. But it is not necessarily an obstacle.You don't need AI, you need smarter tech that saves you time and money and makes you better at your job. It just so happens AI is what makes that possible.We always says all AI is not created equal, just because you look at three platforms that do content intelligence, which is basically helping you figure out the right by using AI tools. They're not all created equal. And you're gonna have to be able to drill in and ask some different questions.And I think if you go into AI thinking about it that way, that is an assistant, it is there to help you and recommend things to you and, and develop drafts of social shares and ads and copy like not write the thing for you, then you can have an amazing experience with AI.You just gotta be curious, like, find the thread within AI that is interesting to you. Guest Links:Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/Connect with Paul Roetzer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulroetzer/Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3xkUopA [Affiliate]Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A lot of us in digital and social media marketing seem to get lost in the universe of content and engagement.What gets lost in the conversation is the fundamental role and importance that marketing data SHOULD play in your marketing strategy.It's simple: The more data you have, the more effective your marketing will be.If you don't have enough data, it is worth investing in acquiring it.This is a short and sweet episode but I wanted to inspire you to put emphasis on data in your marketing.Key Highlights [02:49] Why Everything You Do Should Be Data-Driven As Possible[03:43] My First Experience With Understanding How Powerful Data Can Be[05:04] You Need to Experiment More[07:48] Be Aggressive in Getting the Data[08:44] How Data Can Help You Make Informed Decisions[09:15] I Encourage You to Spend A Little Money in Terms You Can Get More DataNotable QuotesBut we talk about in marketing a data driven strategy, I believe that everything we do should be as data driven as possible. Obviously, it's hard to do almost everything data driven. But there's a lot of things that we can do.They could relatively predict as to how a given campaign will perform. That is extremely powerful, because we want to know where to invest our money as business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers, and what is going to be Return on assets. And then we can compare and contrast.It's not always clear cut, but the more data we have, then the more we can predict these things.The more you do this, across different social networks, different follower size counts, you begin to understand the market price for working with influencers.It all comes down to this data, this first party data, the more we know, the more informed our decisions can be, the more things become predictable, the bigger impact we can have with the same marketing budget, because now we can pick and choose what are going to be the avenues that have the best chance of success. So I wanted to throw it out there and encourage you, it's okay to spend a little money or, you know, to engage with influencers to publish a little more content, whatever it is, if you're looking to get that data to use going forward in a lot of different ways, especially if you're trying to compare and contrast different channels -- that's going to be really, really important to get as much data and to really leverage that data as part of a data driven approach to digital content, influencer, social media marketing, whatever brand of marketing that you choose to do today. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Email marketing has been shown time and time again to have the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel, yet many businesses and entrepreneurs do not prioritize it as much as they should.And there are those that do email marketing just to go through the motion without doing it in a strategic way and then wondering why there is no ROI or how to measure it.If you are in either of these boats, you will get A LOT out of this interview with Bobby Klinck, author of Email Marketing That Doesn't Suck, who will school you on everything you wanted to know about email marketing in this episode!Key Highlights[02:12] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Bobby Klinck[05:50] How Bobby Began Using Email Marketing[11:05] Shifting from Legal Industry to Marketing[17:13] How Bobby Finds Stories to Tell[17:58] Why Stories Are Powerful[22:00] How to Know If the Email is Impacting the Business In A Positive Way?[29:31] Why Email Is Stil the Best Platform[33:12] The CATCH Framework[39:15] Nurturer to Welcome[40:26] What Made Bobby Decide to Write A Book[47:37] Final Advice[51:17] Connect with BobbyNotable QuotesI think just a lot of stuff is recycled down once a thought becomes mainstream, everybody just sort of clings to it. I think it's always, you know, important that we have fresh ideas.But really, what I tell people is their stories everywhere.The key is to get in the practice of finding them. And you don't start with a story, your email start with what is the message or lesson that I want to get across?For most people, what I suggest is you're going to have a few different themes you're going to use over and over again, in your business and your message, whatever it is that you're talking about. Keep story journals about those things, and you don't write the whole story out.It's hard in this online marketing world where everyone wants quantifiable. Prove to me that this works right now. And this and I'm like, you can't necessarily do that. Because this is true marketing of building brand equity, building that type of thing. So that over time, you will ultimately have a brand where people just buy from you. And that's what you're shooting for.A really great framework to think about the email as an extension of a relationship as if it was in person. It's not an email address. It's an actual person on the other side of the email address. And how would you engage with them if you were in the same room with them?It is the only channel where you can really curate The messages like when it comes time to sell the messages you want people to receive in the particular order you want them to receive.That's what email and marketing are about, establishing that relationship.Understand that when you make the shift and start thinking about marketing the right way, like selling is just natural.Guest Links:Bobby Klinck's Website: https://www.bobbyklinck.com/Email Marketing That Doesn't Suck on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3wXK0oT [AffiliaLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In digital marketing, the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) cannot be understated. One of the most powerful methods of climbing up the search engine rankings is the acquisition of backlinks.But how does one get backlinks? And are the more links the merrier?I believe that the SEO industry - or at least many companies offering SEO services - assume that the more the better, and they base the value of a link on the "domain authority" of the website. This is similar to valuing influencers just by the number of followers.Are many companies flat out doing SEO wrong? Here's my take - would love to hear what you think.Key Highlights[02:11] My New Mission Statement[05:20] Why SEO Is Important?[06:05] How Does Library of Content Help Your Business?[07:33] Off-page SEO[08:49] Will Content Alone Get You Ranked?[10:05] Critical Things to SEO[11:36] How Does Google Know Authority On Sites?[13:11] SEO Backlinks[13:26] Ways to Build Backlinks[18:48] Importance of Relevance[20:07] Only Get Backlinks and Guest Blogs From Where You Have Authority [24:24] My First Good Search Engine Ranking[25:22] The Power of Relevant and Authoritative Links[26:52] External Links VS Internal Links [28:42] How to Know if A Site Is Relevant or Not to My Site?Notable QuotesBut once your content is indexed, Google always wants to serve the best content, the most relevant content, the most relevant and best content to everybody's unique search query.But the fact that you are able to guest blog on a platform, especially if that platform has a lot of authority is a good thing. And you can see how search engines will reward you and that will help you over time, build up more authority.I think relevance is really, really important. And I think if you're going to go out of your way to guest blog, or somehow generate backlinks, there are many ways to do it right.I think search engines are really smart, especially to people Google. They're using AI and machine learning. And I think that any unnatural link or any collect unnatural links over time are not going to serve you well.You only want to try to get backlinks and guest blog, or perhaps accept guest bloggers, it's got to be related to where you are in authority because if it is, and the other site also has authority in that subject, I believe that that link might be worth 10 200 times more valuable than just a backlink from some random website.The beautiful thing about all this is once you jump up the search engine rankings, assuming your content is good, then obviously, you can continue there. Links Mentioned:Guest Blogging Guide EbookFraseSEMRushDefinitivLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you've ever been curious about Pinterest, or are looking for ways to diversify your social media marketing, this episode is for you.Kate Ahl is the undisputed Queen of Pinterest marketing. In this episode she shares with us everything you need to know about the why and how of Pinterest marketing.Key Highlights[03:09] Introduction to Podcast Guest, Kate Ahl[05:33] How Kate Started on Pinterest[07:12] Special Characteristic of an Average Pinner[09:33] Companies That Would Best be Served by Pinterest[13:11] Understanding Pinterest Analytics[14:14] The First Steps You Should Do With Pinterest[15:33] Pinterest Guided Search[16:09] Pinterest Lens[18:28] What Makes Some Pinterest Accounts More Successful than Others?[22:51] Pinterest Image Trick[24:16] Pin Formats[29:33] My Pinterest Data[32:05] Why You Should Advertise on Pinterest[35:13] What to Look Out for on Pinterest in the Upcoming Months[42:12] Connect with KateNotable QuotesPinterest is a great informer of purchases.But oftentimes, what people fail to realize is that if you're already creating content, or you're writing articles, with Pinterest, it's just a simple switch of an image.What we tell people, if you're going to think about approaching the platform right away, is to get your profile set up, get a business account, get your profile set up, and think of it as how can I showcase who I am and what I do in this very top of the profile piece so people know right away.Images really need to be where your branding shines.But I think that people the power of sharing amongst the people is real. So people want to see it, they're gonna see it.one of the things that you and I had talked about before is Pinterest still drives so much traffic, compared to all the other platforms that have really shut it off, for the sake of the pay-to-play. Pinterest still is an environment where you can just do organic marketing, you don't have to necessarily go into the pay to play.Our goal is to make Pinterest marketing accessible for everybody in a way that does not confuse them in a way that does not overwhelm them but gets them straight to the heart of what they need to know, as well as keeps them informed.Guest Links:Simple Pin Media: https://www.simplepinmedia.com/ Connect with Kate on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/simplepinmedia/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Welcome to Web3!I had an amazing time at Joe Pulizzi's Creator Economy Expo, and I want to share with you what I learned specifically about Web 3.0 and how blockchain, cryptocurrencies and NFTs are all related.In all honesty, I avoided these subjects for sometime as I found the NFT space to be full of people investing in them as if they were the .com startups in the tech bubble. However, wanting to learn about them knowing that Joe Pulizzi, the founder of Content Marketing World and Godfather of content marketing, is so invested in educating others around them, and after hearing Jeremiah Owyang's keynote speech, I now see things in a new light, and I think it is important enough that you do to.No, I am not investing in any NFTs, but I do see how brands (and content creators) can and will be leveraging Web3 technologies in the not-so-distant future.So, I am by no means an expert, and am very much a newbie, but I want to begin by sharing with you what I have learned and my perspective on this to help you all better understand the space.I am still very much in the R&D phase of learning about this latest trend, but if this is something you want me to talk more about on my podcast, please let me know!Key Highlights[03:50] Democratization of Content[05:56] What is Web 3.0?[06:09] The Sharing Economy[07:10] What is Blockchain[08:20] Where Blockchain Started to be Implemented[10:08] Sharing of Digital Ownership[14:14] Why Would I Want Creators to Invest in Their Communities?[18:12] Utilitarian Example of Monetizing Personal Brand[22:23] What to Do Now?[28:50] What is NFT?Notable QuotesBlockchain is the technology that will allow this to happen. And blockchain is a technology that allows us it's basically I guess, for lack of a better word, it is an accounting record, a ledger, which records every single transaction, and it can limit the number of iterations or the amount of ownership. I talked about the democratization of digital ownership. All of this is decentralized. There's not a person or an entity that owns it. It's decentralized by the framework of the technology itself, by the blockchain.So right now, I think a lot of people are focused on the craters when it comes to NFT, the artists what have you. But it's equally important for brands to really understand this, because it is a growing economy. The economy of NF T's and cryptocurrency is already greater than influencer marketing.With the democratization of digital ownership, the democratization of financial transactions. It's almost like the democratization of community.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Of all of the marketing channels that exist, partnership marketing is one of the most under-utilized yet high potential opportunities that exist for businesses today.Best represented by affiliate marketing, when done right, affiliate marketing provides you with an army of incentivized influencers that are selling on your behalf and only paid when a sale is made on a 24/7 basis.Furthermore, there are a plethora of other "halo effect" benefits from this type of partnership marketing.Intrigued? Learn all about partnership from co-author, Matt Wool, who wrote the book on partnership marketing, Moving to Outcomes, and is also the CEO of the leading partnership marketing firm Acceleration Partners.Key Highlights[02:21] Introduction to the Podcast Guest, Matt Wool[03:42] How Matt Got Into Marketing and Writing Book[06:48] The Issues Matt Found With Affiliate Marketing[10:47] The Emergence of Influencer and Creator Economy[14:30] Affiliations on NFTs and Cryptocurrencies[16:57] What Prompted Matt to Write the Book[20:39] What is Partnership Marketing?[21:49] How to Scale This Type of Relationship?[23:25] How to Get Started[26:30] Recommended Platforms for Startups[27:03] Main Areas to be Aware OfNotable QuotesAnd you know, our, our philosophy has long been it's not necessarily should you work with someone, it's more how you worked with someone.What I think we really see is that this is going to have a significant impact on the overall partnership marketing landscape and One of the things that I think it is going to do is it is going to, in a lot of ways decentralize affiliate and influencer marketing.There's this potential for these kinds of limitless numbers have like many affiliate programs that are enabled by certain smart contracts over time, which will be available to individual creators and that way, so it's a little bit of a different place that we're playing in, because we're working more with enterprise clients, but I think it's fascinating, and there's a lot that's going to happen there.The main crux of this book is that we see too many marketers and too many companies with a hugely disproportionate amount of their eggs in one or two baskets, from a marketing budget perspective, right, they are shoveling money into Google, they are shoveling money into meta, whether it's Instagram, or you know, the regular platform, maybe they've got a few other things going in a couple of other channels.But one thing I think a lot of people forget is affiliate marketing is also good for us.  So having those tiers and really understanding how you are presenting yourself to those publishers, are the keys to scaling the program and effective way.Guest Links:Acceleration Partners: https://accelerationpartners.com Moving to Outcomes on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3l43uSb [affiliate]Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-wool-67a3aa5/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Can you summarize your current marketing program in a 30-second elevator pitch?And if you could what would it include?This episode is inspired by a shark tank competition for high schoolers that my children competed in and looking at your marketing in fresh eyes through the perspective of teenagers!You are guaranteed to look at your marketing in a different way after listening to this episode...Key Highlights[01:54] What is a High School Shark Tank Competition[04:38] The Gaps Between Digital Marketing Resources and Materials[05:32] The Approach to Determining a Product to Sell[06:30] Some Compelling Presentations and Projects in the Competition[07:35] The Stages of Funnel[08:16] Stages of Funnel That Were Common From All Pitches[10:01] How Should We Do Influencer Marketing?[10:36] Leveraging UGC To Gain Credibility[10:47] Where Influence Becomes Important[11:58] The Biggest No-Brainer For Marketing Today[12:54] An Example of Simple Lead Magnet Equation[15:01] Do Your Own Shark Tank[15:36] The Component that Helps Me Build People Relationship[16:52] How Can You Start to Better Leverage Influencers?Notable QuotesSometimes we really need to dumb down what we are doing. When I was in high school and thinking about business, it was really about what were my needs? What were the needs of high school friends, and what can I sell to them, right. And I think that these high schoolers had really the same approach just based on their own experiences as to what sort of product that they could sell.If you think about it in the funnel, in terms of brand awareness, search is a great way to get brand awareness.it's such a no brainer in 2022 that it still shocks me that a lot of brands still ask, well, what's the ROI? Why do we need to do influencer marketing and it really brings me back to the early days of social media marketing, where people We're asking the same thing. The question isn't, do we need to do influencer marketing? The question is, well, how do we do it?But at the end of the day, it's going to become more pay to play until you actually have customers where you can republish their content.So until you get to that point, it's really, really hard to break through the noise, starting from zero followers and get that brand awareness that we all want to get on social media. And that's where the influence has become even more important, especially at the beginning, when you don't have brand awareness.And to me, it was sort of a pat on the back that riding the age of influence, and evangelizing influencer marketing is the wave of the future.It comes down to a combination of all these. Yu can't have one without the other. But really, it's the email component that allows me to build that deeper relationship and ultimately convert people, as my data has shown.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Content is the currency of digital and social media, but it can actually even be more strategic than being a mere currency.Content marketing can not only help build your business, but it can play an instrumental role in building out a category that you own and deliver long-term digital benefits for your company.Think Hubspot - they "own" the term for inbound marketing.If you want to achieve similar results for your company, you'll want to listen in to this interview.Key Highlights[01:24] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mark Raffan[03:00] How Mark Got Into Content Marketing[08:04] What Does Establishing Your Own Category Means?[13:30] Importance of Content Marketing in Establishing Own Category[14:36] Create Quality Content[17:00] Timeline and Strategies for Establishing Category[21:01] Don't Forget About the Traditional Pieces[22:38] Difference between Content Marketing Agency from an SEO Agency[24:32] How to Structure Overall Strategy and Choosing the Platform to Post Content OnNotable QuotesWhat's interesting about negotiation, that a lot of marketers don't understand is that negotiation and marketing are very, very similar, because they're both built on the same foundational elements. They're both built on persuasion, they're both built on influence. And when you think of those foundational elements, there's a lot of overlap between those two. It's one thing to rank and it's another thing entirely to maintain, as a low bounce rate so that people actually read your stuff and engage with it and consume it on a regular basis. And that's what you have to create sort of long term. And also the same thing applies when it goes to social when it goes to video. It's got to be stuff that people actually want to consume.Don't create a category unless you can afford to. And what I mean by that is, if you, if you don't have any decent funding, whether it's seed or series funding, this is a task best left to those who do.It all starts with the strategy, get the strategy down first, try and think about who you're going to reach out to, and whether or not this category that you're creating is going to stick within that target group. And then dedicate yourself to building enough content that sort of an upswell gets created.You don't have to do everything all at once you can start off in phases. But if you're just starting out in the Content Marketing World, just look at it through those lenses. Is it interesting? Is it educational? Is it informative? Everything will come from there.Guest Links:Content CalloutContent Callout PodcastConnect with Mark on LinkedInLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Guest blogging is something that has been around for awhile but misunderstood by many. What is the benefit of blogging on someone else's site or inviting someone to blog on yours? And does Google approve of this?Listen in as I give you my own perspective on the topic, and why you'll want to think a little more strategically about guest blogging going forward.The resource that I mention in the episode, my newest free book, The Definitive Guide to Guest Blogging: The Most Effective Link Building Strategy, can be downloaded here: https://nealschaffer.com/guest-blogging-guide/Key Highlights[03:07] My First Guest Blogger[05:54] The Power of Guest Blogging[06:33] Why Relevance is Important[07:30] Guest Blogging Survey Statistics[08:27] My Newest Ebook: The Definitive Guide to Guest Blogging[09:20] Relationship Building With Those that Have Influence[10:35] Example of an Influence[12:51] Influence of Blogs or Blogging[14:36] How Guest Blogging Can Nurture Positive Relationship[15:37] Best Practice for Linking OutNotable QuotesGuest Blogging is the single most important way to build links, and getting links to your content or to your website is one of the most important things you can do to improve the SEO of your website.For me, relevance is the ultimate. And when I bring on a guest blog, or when I guess, blog myself, that is the number one thing I look for, they don't have to necessarily have the highest domain authority or authority in Google's eyes. But if they're extremely relevant to my audience, and the content is extremely relevant to my website, that's when there is a match made in heaven.So guest blogging is often misunderstood or gets a bad rap for a variety of reasons, as I talked about, I want you to understand the value of guest blogging, so that you can decide if and how to make it work for your business. Influence is not defined by how many followers you have on Instagram. Influence is equally defined by how many followers you have on YouTube, or what is the domain authority of your website, or how many podcast downloads you get per episode. It is everywhere across digital media. Social media does not work that way. Organic clicks are the hardest things to get.Blogs or bloggers have tremendous influence, especially when we talk about clickability. But it's for brand awareness as well.So if I'm going to link out, because it's the best practice, and with every link, I want to educate my audience more about that anchor text, whatever it is, I'd rather link out to someone that I like know, and trust, right. And that's where the relationship building the influence and marketing aspect really kicks in, and can be really, really powerful.But I do believe that for content creation. If you publish things too frequently, in general, there is a tendency for the quality to not be at its optimal. It doesn't happen all the time. But it can happen because we're human.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Have you ever wanted to pick the brain of an SEO expert and get the real scoop on what makes for good - and bad - search engine optimization and even understand for what situations SEO might not be the best investment of your marketing budget?If so you are going to love this interview with Eli Schwarz, author of Product-Led SEO. I guarantee you after listening to this episode you will see SEO in a brand new insightful light!Key Highlights[02:19] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Eli Schwartz[03:38] How Eli Got Into SEO[06:45] Going Beyond Keywords[10:10] How to Identify SEO Opportunities[14:23] Types of B2B Companies that Best Fit SEO[19:03] Eli's Definition of Investing[22:17] Productled SEO[24:19] Example of Succesful Businesses[28:27] Programmility and Scalability[29:56] Things People Overlook SEO[34:12] Smarter AI in SEO][35:26] Final Advice[37:43] Connect with EliNotable QuotesI think the idea is in the idea for all marketing, social media, SEO, paid media, brand media is users, you want to sell something, even if you're not selling an actual product, you're selling eyeballs, you're selling your media, you're selling retention, you're selling on brain authority.I want to bring SEO back to that which is search is just a medium for people to find us.So I think if you think about search as a medium and search as a concept, then you're focusing on the user, which is how do I create the best content, the best material for the users that are going to be using searches immediately, not how am I going to understand Google's algorithm of today and improve upon that so I show up as high as possible.Know where you are in the funnel and build the effort around that.So that's all I'm saying is do the basics, but don't make it an investment. If it's not a channel, don't spend money on advertising if you're not going to get users from it.When I say product lead SEO, I mean that your understanding that there is a user out there on search that is looking for something that you can sell, and you build an entire product around it.So educational content, again, if if it doesn't scale, then you're limited by how much content you can create.90% of websites don't do SEO. That's a fact. I think it's probably 99% of websites in the world don't do SEO. So all the rules that Google has, has to work for the 100%, not just the 90%If you can't justify your spend on SEO, if you don't see how the amount of money you're spending on SEO will ever repaid back, you can't put it in a spreadsheet. Guest Links:Eli's Website: https://www.elischwartz.co/Product-Led SEO on Amazon: https://amzn.to/379RJGe [affiliate]Connect with Eli on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in.schwartzeLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

We've been hearing for some time that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will change not only the way we do business but society as well.The truth is, marketers have already started to use AI, many time without knowing it. This is because many tools are already including AI algorithms in their analytics, such as the social media analytics tool Social Insider.Lately there has been a lot of buzz around using AI to actually create content. How far have these platforms come? Listen in as I literally tell you what AI-generated content sounds like so you can come to your own conclusion as to if and how you decide to leverage the technology for yourself. AI Tools Mentioned: (affiliate links)Jasper: https://nealschaffer.com/jasperFrase: https://nealschaffer.com/fraseKey Highlights [02:38] What AI Can Do for Us[02:54] Frase Tool[03:34] AI Tools for SEO and Content Marketing[05:06] The Potentials When Leveraging Tools[05:47] Explain It to a Child Template[07:26] Content Improver Tool[10:59] Blog Post Intro Paragraph[11:53] Copyscape Tool[12:58] Paragraph Template[14:40] Choosing Tone of the Voice[19:36] How to Get JasperNotable QuotesWhat I feel are the most compelling use case scenario for these tools, which are ads, Facebook ad headline, Facebook, ad primary text, you want to have some variations of different ad copy, will, this can actually shoot out a lot of different variations very, very quickly,I recommend and I enjoy the fact that there are multiple outputs for this. But you get a sense that with some correction, we can actually leverage this and it sort of spices up our language.I think the best content is content that triggers on people's emotions, that has your own unique perspective that has more of a human element to it.But anyway, I just wanted to plant a seed in your head that, whether it's email copy, whether it's blog post or ad copy, I don't think that these tools are going to replace human beings. But I do believe that as a helper, to help you do research, help you make sure you're covering your bases in terms of content, because if the AI can find content that they think you should include in your blog post that you're not including, then maybe you don't have all your bases covered, right?I think now is the time to start embracing these tools not to replace human beings. But as helpers, to help you make better content in less time. And writing is an art. And I would never publish anything without running it by human editors, or my own human eyes and making my own human corrections. But I do believe when you're just your creativity, well is running dry, when you have nothing to say, using one of these tools is going to give you a lot to say.I think if you are a marketer, you owe it to yourself to really try to start leveraging one of these tools.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you looking for creative angles to your Instagram marketing?Today's guest, Author of Blogging on Instagram, Terri Nakamura, will introduce you to a refreshingly unique way of looking at the platform that will spark some new creative ideas for your own Instagram marketing.You don't have to start a blog to be successful on Instagram, but following Terri's advice will undoubtedly help improve your Twitter marketing game!Key Highlights[02:44] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Terri Nakamura[06:36] Who is Terri?[11:21] Why and How Terri Started Blogging on Instagram[12:17] Courses Terri Took in Digital Marketing[14:48] Why Terri Wrote a Book[17:57] How Terri Found Her Publisher[25:04] The Value of Publisher[27:07] The Route Terri Took[33:06] Evolving Blogging for Instagram to Book[36:52] Terri's Advice to Those Who Take Advantage of Instagram as a Blogging Platform[39:17] "Make EveryEmail a Love Letter"[40:16] Impact of Instagram on Developing Relationships[42:27] How to get the most of Instagram[44:11] Connect with TerriNotable QuotesI think some people just feel like social media is there to be an advertising platform and they don't deliver any value.Understanding the value in education and the other things that you deliver to your audience are the things that draw them to you.I think blogging [on Instagram] is a really great place to experiment for people who want to write and have and engage with the audience.You don't make money off the book, you make money off people who read the book, who reach out and want to hire you. If you have a visual way of representing what you do, or you have a visual product or service, it's even better for that platform. You can't be everywhere. You don't need to be everywhere. You have to prioritize and know where your time is going to be the most valuable.You can collect other kinds of data that will indicate whether or not you're on the right track and what kinds of things resonate, and how many times you get on to the Explore page and stuff like that. And it's really important to build an audience and awareness, so you get other benefits.So you can imagine that if you treat social media and Instagram in that way, and you are putting your attention creating a blog post and every post you publish there, it can be really impactful because it really is a personal platform. And you can personally connect with people and engage with people in that way.Guest Links:Blogging on Instagram on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qPRYNj [affiliate]Connect with Terri on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/terrinakamuraConnect with Terri on Instagram: https://instagram.com/terrinakamuraLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Working with corporate clients I have developed my own 100-point LinkedIn profile audit score that looks at 20 different areas of a LinkedIn profile. And, year in and year out, most professionals underperform in these 10 areas.Listen in for some tangible and actionable LinkedIn profile advice!Key Highlights [02:23] LinkedIn Profile Completeness[03:30] Social Selling Index[04:09] What Social Selling Index Does?[05:21] My 100 Point System[07:26] Searching for People[08:00] Top 10 Areas Where Majority of Professionals Underperform[08:55] Personalized URL[11:15] Creator Mode[15:10] Featured Section[16:31] Past Company Experience[20:29] Concept of Waiting[21:44] Volunteering/Organizations[24:03] 5 First Priority Areas[24:16] Professional Summary[26:20] Write Your Professional Summary in First Person[28:31] Publish More Content on Linkedin![31:09] Current Company Experience[31:59] Gain Recommendations[33:27] SummaryNotable QuotesI'm finding that a majority of employees, and these are generally primarily sales-focused people, they are falling short, in pretty much the same 10 areas, year in and year out every time I do this.This proprietary methodology that I think really brings your LinkedIn profile into alignment with the high performers in your industry. And as you all know, all roads on LinkedIn lead to your profile. That's why it's so critical that you get it right.The LinkedIn profile is almost like your second website. In fact, if you do not have a website, your LinkedIn profile pretty much is your own website. And that's why you want to make sure that your profile is up to par.I always say claim your personal URL before someone with a similar name does.I would bet that LinkedIn by limiting you to high five hashtags, it's really saying that you specialize. You're an expert in these areas, and therefore, when you publish content around those areas, it would make sense that maybe it gets a little bit more priority than people that don't have those hashtags that are publishing content with those hashtags.LinkedIn is an inbound marketing tool, the more data you give it, the more places that you said you worked, the more keywords you can add in those places, the broader the connections you can make with other people.It was my wife who said, you know, all those past relationships that you have, add up to who you are today. They've made you who you are today, they are a part of you. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I would say about all your past experiences, add up to who you are. And you never know when that past experience is going to come in handy. By putting volunteering/organizations in your profile, you're not only building that potential data point that helps connect with someone. But it's this point of relatability. Introduce yourself, like you would, as if you were speaking with someone. And that will make your LinkedIn profile, all the more impactful.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Content Marketing. Blogging. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Email Marketing. How do these all fit together seamlessly and strategically to help generate new leads and business?This is the broad topic that I speak with Jeff Baker, CMO of the leading content marketing agency Brafton, about.By the end of this conversation you will:Understand B2B leads: from the buyer persona to the user intent.Learn how to create a cohesive content marketing strategy that drives leads.Learn the differences amongst the top 5 strategies: Lead magnet, Free tools, Original research, Case studies, Newsletter.Key Highlights[01:37] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jeff Baker[02:43] Jeff's Journey to Digital Marketing[05:32] What is SEO?[09:30] Should I Create Content Using AI?[15:10] Looking At Search Intent and Buyer Persona[19:13] The Importance of Adding Value to Your Audience[19:35] Why Blogs Exist?[20:07] Selling by Teaching[22:51] What is a Lead Magnet?[23:00] Five Strategies to Lead Magnet[27:02] One of the Best Lead Magnets[28:55] Tool that Jeff Recommends for Lead Magnets [31:01] Creating Original Research[35:57] Writing Case Studies[39:02] How to be Successful on Newsletter[45:25] Connect with JeffNotable QuotesThe new SEO strategist is going to be a content strategist. The soul and really caring about the topic, and showing the unique perspective is what really is going to differentiate that content and which is going to help not just in search engine rankings, but generate leads as well.Most of the time, when I see people getting this wrong with lead generation, it's they're mismatching the intent of their users with the goal that they're trying to accomplish.So for me, my best recommendation is to follow the intent all the way through to the end. So understand that my intent for this particular topic, this search is information, I'm just looking to learn and don't break that pathway and offer me something that adds value to my current mindset.When creating the strategy, the informational, and just understanding those intersection points, and really trying to knowing that some of that content is going to more directly generate the leads, and the remainder is really going to indirectly.Same point with the lead magnets. It doesn't need to be an earth shattering, lead magnet or tool that nobody's created, or nobody's ever thought about. It just needs to add some value, you know. And the good point is that, we always assume we need to provide a lot more than the user does.Start with the assumption that nobody wants to read it. And what that's going to do is it's going to force you to create something way out of the box with your subject line and with the content that you put in there.Guest Links:.Brafton: https://www.brafton.com/Connect with Jeff Baker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bakerseo/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I just came back from speaking at Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices, the leading real estate company in the United States and the World,  annual convention. Working with realtors I have realized 2 truths:They are entrepreneurs and need to build their own business like any other business ownerLike most entrepreneurs, a lot of them simply don't have the time and/or resource to consistently show up on social mediaWhile there are some EXTREMELY savvy real estate pros when it comes to social media, from a numbers perspective, my experience is that an overwhelming majority are still looking for the magic bullet to help them gain value from social media, where they know they need to be more often.Whether or not you are in social media, I am hoping this message resonates with you as well!With that in mind, in this episode I share with you a simple formula to give you some boundaries yet concrete guidance to make the most of social media marketing in the smallest amount of time necessary.I hope this inspires YOU to ACTION!Key Highlights[03:50] What I Noticed On Successful Real Estate Agents And Salespeople[05:36] Reimagining Content for More Impactful Social Media Marketing[07:43] People Want To Engage With People, Not Objects[08:4] It's All About Action[09:35] Include Yourself More In Your Content[10:15] Visualize Everything That You Do[11:42] Stick With Big 3 Platforms[15:00] When To Customize Content For Every Platform[15:47] Things to Remember If You Want to Publish Same Content Across Platform[20:00] It's Okay to Include Yourself In Your ContentNotable QuotesI find that a lot of real estate agents, a lot of salespeople, and a lot of businesses are self promotional in their content and social media, which tells me, they don't look at social media as this golden arena where we can develop relationships of value with all sorts of entities, all sorts of people.But more than often, people want to see you they want to engage with you, they engage more with people than they do with logos or inanimate objects. It is just the general rule of human beings and, and how and why we engage with people. And this is what social media is all about.I want to challenge you to be 100% visual, with your content. This is what social networks want. This is what people engage with more. And at the end of the day, this is going to get you the most eyeballs.this is what I want you to think about when it comes to your social media marketing. It should be a process, it should be a system because I want you to save time for the actual engagement for the proactive engagement of finding new people reaching out to new people and the reactive engagement of obviously being there when people engage with you. And once again, save your creative juices for the engagement and for the content. There's always room to let people know what makes you tick, what you enjoy doing,  what you're passionate about so that people get to know you better. And not only does that build up your personal brand in their eyes, but it makes a deeper emotional attachment. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Yes, there are big changes underway in the world of Facebook and Google Ads, in case you hadn't heard. Beginning with GDPR, the trends are slowly moving in the favor of consumers, and advertisers are being challenged in accessing the same amount of rich data they used to be able to more easily obtain effective digital marketing advertising results.What should your business do to measure your digital marketing ads ROI in a non-trackable world?This is the topic of an informative interview I had with Elijah Kirsch, CEO and Founder of Zonder Marketing and also one of the leading consultants at Mayple Marketing Solutions.Some of the things we discussed include:How to understand the current digital and social media advertising situation and further push for privacy and its impact on your advertisingLearn how to measure ROI through a variety of A/B testing methodsDiscover "hidden" ROI measurements in your dataKey Highlights[02:42] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Elijah Kirsch[04:42] Elijah's Journey to Digital Marketing[06:27] The Evolution of Digital Marketing[10:32] Look Alikes and Remarketing[12:10] Changes in Social Media Platforms[13:03] Changes in Paid Digital Marketing[15:00] Things That Businesses Should Be Doing Now[19:44] Attribution On Multiple Touchpoints[23:12] Elijah's Favorite AV Testing Methods[26:42] Hidden ROI Measurements[30:57] How Mayple Helps Businesses[34:15] What To Look Foward In The Next Years[36:30] Connect With ElijahNotable QuotesAnd one thing that I believe in is when you're taking over a client that already exists, and they already have campaigns, don't just run your own. I've seen that happens so many times where agencies consultants are like, hey, I've got a better idea.While this year is tough, just because you have that year over year comparison, I think going forwards with these, you're going to see much smarter implementations much, much more cohesive stories doing putting more effort into those areas than I think what often got done in the past. And so I think what the businesses are going to start to do is really understand what that incrementality is.I think we as marketers need to be much more integrated, no longer can we just look at return on adspend and call it a day, another client of working with doing Google Shopping, I've reset up all their campaigns based on their actual margin.You can completely change how a company works and operates by understanding that data, it takes a lot more effort, it takes time, and it takes understanding. But I find it extremely helpful.You can't have mediocre creatives anymore. They have to be on point. You have to be working with people and be integrated into that brand team. Guest Links:Mayple: https://www.mayple.com/Zonder Marketing: https://www.zonder.io/Connect with Elijah Kirsch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elijahkirsch/ Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Twitter is an often forgotten about but potentially extremely powerful option for your social media marketing.What impact can Twitter have on your marketing? What businesses should utilize it? And how to go about best using it?Find out all you want to know about Twitter marketing on this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast!Key Highlights[05:13] Why I Invest Time and Energy On Twitter[07:08] Twitter as A Great Discovery Tool for News[07:48] The Magic of Twitter[08:33] The Value of Twitter[09:08] Importance of Twitter Ads[10:23] Connecting and Engaging Is Easy On Twitter[11:52] Twitter's Content[13:48] Share Natively![16:04] Hidden Engagement[16:32] Things You Can Do To Start A Conversation[17:23] Why It Is Easier Develop Relationships On Twitter[19:04] SummaryNotable QuotesNow, a lot of us marketers publish a lot to Twitter. And we tend to use tools to do that. And when you use a tool on a platform, you sort of lose touch with the reality of the platform. And I definitely realize that with Twitter, really as a place to monitor the news, Twitter does a good job of pointing out news that's going on from reputable sources.Once again, that happens on Twitter, it's because it's where the news breaks. And it's where the media is. And if you're a business, or if you're a solopreneur. entrepreneur, you want to get covered by the media.The life span of a tweet is very short. It's the repetitive gesture of checking it on Twitter, if you're doing it organically, several times a day, if you're tweeting a few times a day is going to be the cadence that you need, I believe in order to make impact there because it is so noisy.And there's very few platforms today that we can say that about, but compared to a tick tock, or any other platform, Twitter really is the easiest platform to connect and engage with others on to have conversations.So if you want to go a little bit further with Twitter, assuming that you're already publishing content on LinkedIn, on a Facebook, or on an Instagram, or even on a tick tock, you can take that exact same content and publish it on Twitter, that would be my number one recommendation for you.The magic starts when you engage with others, when you engage with influencers with thought leaders with your followers. And the more you tweet, and the more you engage, and that engagement should also include proactively following, the more things tend to happen over time, like anything else in social media, it has a tumbleweed effect.And part of me is like when everybody talks about going to LinkedIn or a tick tock or an Instagram, there's always value in all these other social networks that a lot of people have forgotten about. They're all equally important. And I think that those that are successful are those that have a very, very holistic perspective on digital and social media marketing, and know where everything fits into place and what strategic levers to best pull for whatever state you're in, in your digital and social media marketing.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Instagram has always been the King of influencer marketing, i.e. where a majority of influencer marketing budgets have been going, but with the emergence of TikTok, which is the best place to engage with and activate influencers?Joining me today is influencer marketing expert, and Founder and CEO of one of the leading companies in the influencer marketing space, Markerly. We go deep into what makes TikTok such an appealing venue for influencer marketing, including:Why TikTok is the place to be for young people.Why it's more engaging than any of the incumbents.The amazing value you can get working with TikTokers and how competitive their ad platform is for brands.Key Highlights[02:07] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Justin Kline[05:03] How Justin Get Into Influencer Marketing[07:26] Transitioning From Social Network to Influencer Marketing[10:26] The Growth of Tiktok Over The Last Years[13:10] Changes in Tiktok Demographics[14:53] The Rise of Tiktok During Pandemic[18:00] What Makes Tiktok Special?[20:03] The Role of Influencers[22:00] The Differences of Going Into Influencer Marketplace[25:16] Tiktok Ads[27:07] Tapping Into Creative Force of Influencers[28:40] Branded Partnership in Tiktok[29:57] Knowing the Demographics to Invest Into[33:46] Connect with JustinNotable QuotesIt's just crazy how, how much the pandemic has changed things. It's really fascinating. And yeah, and I look at Tiktok is very much an entertainment platform. I think it's just this never ending stream of stuff that they're predicting, you're going to like, and the more you, you know, the more you use the app, the better it gets at, at suggesting content to you. Influencers are keeping people interested in making content that, you know, is going to capture people's attention. And, you know, that's a hard job.Tapping into this creative force, that enables you to think of ideas and to come up with content that you wouldn't have been able to come up with on your own. That is more likely to engage people because they on a daily basis, they're putting out content, and they're getting instant feedback as to how effective that content is, and how much that content resonates with their followers. That's sort of a unique type of entertainment that just didn't exist in social media until Tik Tok. Right. So an example of raising the bar now other people are probably trying to do the same thing. And now we're going to see new things. So it just continues to evolve at a very, very quick pace. So I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, working with influences become so critical. Guest Links:Markerly: https://markerly.com/Connect with Justin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/klinejustin Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How powerful can LinkedIn be for your marketing?And what might you be missing out on that is relevant for LinkedIn in 2022?I have written 2 books on LinkedIn, and more recently have written a free ebook, Maximizing LinkedIn for Business, that I try to update every year according to the latest trends of LinkedIn and features it offers.I just came out with my latest version of the free ebook, Maximizing LinkedIn for Business, which is now available for immediate download here: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizing-linkedin-for-business/Learn what the latest LinkedIn features that I recommend you focus on are in this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.Key Highlights[00:16] My Definitive Guide to Email Marketing Ebook[07:17] LinkedIn Can Deliver Results[10:08] My LinkedIn Data Points[14:30] Main Newest Features of LinkedIn[14:46] Freebies On My Website![15:24] First Thing I Would Prioritize Now On LinkedIn[16:22] Generating Emotional Connection[18:24] Featured Section[20:44] Visuals Attract![22:14] Creator Mode[24:00] Benefits You Will Get On Creator Mode[26:05] Speculations on LinkedIn[26:37] Newsletter Feature[28:15] How To Turn On Creator Mode[29:55] LinkedIn Automation Tools[32:11] How To Get Massive Exposure On LinkedIn[34:42] SummaryNotable QuotesLinkedIn is delivering 13x more traffic to my YouTube channel, then Facebook is at a pretty comparable follower size, which goes to show you that organic content published on LinkedIn can perform really well.You want to share information that's going to generate leads. But the other side of it is your human side. The ability to generate an emotional connection with people that together with brand awareness does lead to that content that you want to convert on being seen by more people.LinkedIn is still not Twitter. And it's not Facebook. But you can get more personal. You can share more personal stories, and more personal things about yourself that are inspirational.So think a little bit differently with your content, continue what you've been doing, but try to mix in more of that personal content. And I think you're going to get more engagement and with that, all of your other content afterwards is going to get more visibility.So my recommendation is it can only benefit you turn it on and at a minimum just put those hashtags that are relevant to you and or your brand up on your profile.If you want to get massive exposure on LinkedIn, and you want to start building out a big network.So I'm not going to say LinkedIn automation tools don't exist, because they do, I'm not going to say they can't be efficient, because they can be efficient. I'm also not going to say they don't come with a risk, because they do come with a risk. And you never know when LinkedIn is going to come in and shut down your account. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I talked about my perspective on the Creator Economy with its relationship to influencer marketing on episode 241 literally 10 episodes ago, but seeing how it is a trending buzzword these days, I wanted to invite on an old friend to give us his perspective, as he is literally launching the first event around the Creator Economy called the Creator Economy Expo (go here for a $150 discount: https://nealschaffer.com/cex)And this guest, Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing World, knows something both about content marketing and launching and running successful events.Listen in to learn Joe's perspective on where things have gone with content marketing and where they are heading with the Creator Economy. We covered a LOT of ground on this podcast, even touching upon the metaverse / Web 3.0 and NFTs.If you want to understand the future of social media marketing, you'll want to listen to the end!Key Highlights [01:29] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Joe Pulizzi[04:19] Evolution From Content Marketing to Creator Economy[08:27] What is Creator Economy Expo?[09:42] Why Content Creators Shouldn't Be So Focused on Social Platforms[12:11] What is a Content Creator?[13:45] Why Creator Economy Expo Was Created[15:16] The Ultimate of Creator Economy[18:47] You Need to Build Audience First![20:04] The Best Way to Generate Revenue[22:54] Focus On One Platform and Master It[25:50] Tilt Niching Vs Tilt Differentiation[29:17] The Mission Of Creator EconomyNotable QuotesAnd really, when it comes down to my take may be versus a lot of different people is I don't like what's going on with content creators being so focused on social platforms, when those social platforms then make the changes as they always do.What I found over COVID was what was old is new again.The core really is to be content entrepreneur.You had a lot of great things that are happening. And I don't want people to miss that. So my recommendation is let's experiment. Let's see. But this is really something new that can move content creators from being totally dependent on social platforms.Look at the ones that aren't, the ones that are successful, already have an audience and get this, they usually have a pretty good email list.LLet's get rid of some of this stuff. Let's focus on being great at one or two things instead of just throwing your content all over everywhere.What are the two biggest problems with companies that try to build an audience, one is they don't have a content till they don't have a true differentiation area. And the second is they don't deliver consistently over a long period of time.Guest Links:The Tilt: https://www.thetilt.com/Connect with Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joepulizzi/Creator Economy Expo: https://nealschaffer..com/cexLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you are not building out an email list, you are leaving money on the table.And if you have an email list but are not regularly engaging with your email subscribers, you are leaving money on the table.Listen to this episode to learn why email marketing is so important, has the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel, and a preview of my new free ebook to help you understand best practices in how to "do" email marketing right.Download my free ebook, The Definitive Guide to Email Marketing, here:https://nealschaffer.com/email-marketing-guide/Key Highlights[01:54] Introduction to My Newsletter[03:04] What I Realized About Influencer Marketing[04:34] My First Ebook On Email Marketing[05:18] How Email Marketing Benefit Your Business[05:25] Choosing the Right Email Marketing Software[07:17] Why You Have To Build An Email List[07:46] Email Marketing ROI Example[09:11] Another Data Point[09:35] How To Know the ROI of What You're Doing[12:06] Podcast Data Points[12:42] How to Engage and Build Relationship With People?[14:46] How to Build Email List[16:08] How to Leverage Sequences[16:38] Keeping It Human[17:31] Make Every Email A Love LetterNotable QuotesBased on their business objectives, I realized that influencer marketing wasn't the only way in which they could reach their goals. And in fact, in some cases, it might even be the best choice.And at the end of the day, everything else you do is on rented land, social media is rented land. If you're trying to get better search engine rankings, it's rented to YouTube, Apple podcasts, it's all rented land, we don't own it, the only thing we own our own websites, more importantly, our own email lists, right, which give us direct communication.And we could say the same thing on a podcast and YouTube as well. This is content, it's gonna live forever in the search engines. It's out of your control, but you're building asset.They continue to develop a deeper relationship with their customers, their customers continue to open their emails, and they continue to act upon what those calls to action are.Because once again, they may see us on social media, they may not they may see us in search engines, they may not they may come to our website, they may not. But the email, we know that we can get in front of people, right. And when we get in front of people, we need to be strategic about how we do it. But if we are given the privilege to directly communicate with people, that gives us an opportunity to deepen the relationship on our timeline, rather than the timeline of an arbitrary algorithm.I realized there was a gap in the market marketers were being misled on what influencer marketing was, they were missing out on an extremely impactful way of developing business of developing influential relationships of developing community.We sort of sometimes take for granted the actual verbiage that we use in our messaging, and it's critical. So you need to find a way to keep a human. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Every year we come out saying that this is the year of video. Seems that way doesn't it?Even if you know you SHOULD be doing more video as part of your marketing, it can be challenging if you don't know exactly what you SHOULD do.I also face this challenge, which is why I'm excited to present to you this interview I had with Scott Miller, content marketing expert and Founder and CEO of Centerpost Media.We discussed:Understanding the power that video can have for your marketing.Did you know, for instance, that 64% of internet users are more likely to buy a product after watching a video?How to create the perfect video.If budget allows, hire a professional to help you with videos, but if you are going to produce the videos yourself, there's a LOT to consider.How to best use your videos on social mediaand more!Needless to say if you are trying to play catch up with video, this episode is for you!Key Highlights [01:35] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Scott Miller[06:48] Why We Need To Focus On Video Today?[09:25] How To Create A Perfect Video?[12:28] Balancing Professionality With Authenticity[14:22] Tips And Tricks On Preparing Recorded Videos[16:00] Scott's Suggestions On How To Come Up With Ideas For The Video[16:37] Expert Marketing[18:00] How To Best Use Videos On Social Media[20:53] Balancing Videos With Other Content Type[23:32] Connect With ScottNotable QuotesI think it goes back to one of the trends we're seeing in marketing is being authentic. And so more and more consumers want to know, what does the CEO stand for? How are they treating their employees? Video allows you to convey who you are and tell your story. And I think that's the reason why it's so powerful. I think for me, it always starts with what are you trying to accomplish? I think that's that's step one. When we talk about creating video, you do not have to have video on every single platform.It doesn't have to be huge, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated Neil, it just has to be something that if I'm watching your video, am I getting your message? Is that coming clear? Are you communicating that? And certainly the video does it. But I think having a closed captioning and having the text helps with that as well.80% of the content needs to be free advice. So think to yourself, what are some things I can offer for free, and that scares business owners, right? If you give me something for free, and I try it, and it works, and I want a deeper level, who am I going to go to? This is really about you know, you call it expert marketing, it's about you are already expert in your field.Stop worrying about following the social media trends that do not bring you additional business.Guest Links:Centerpost Media: https://cenpostmedia.com/Connect with Scott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmillermedia/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Content creators are able to generate engagement and influence because they are not always using their content to promote a product or service, but they are using their content to connect with their community and provide value.Just as businesses are at a disadvantage in social media, with the growth of the creator economy, I would argue that the tables are turning against businesses in all of digital media.I want to share with you what I have learned over the last two years of post-COVID digital marketing and why the creator economy will continue to eat into the mindshare that businesses have had in digital marketing.Once you understand this, even if you are a business there is still a way to gain mindshare and compete with content creators.The secret is the one thing that this episode is all about, and you'll have to listen in to find out what it is and the various examples I use to help you see the light!Key Highlights[01:26] Why I Keep Going[03:03] My Library of Content Around Influencer Marketing[03:51] Content Marketing 101[05:00] Who Are We Creating Content For?[06:07] My Blogging and Author Journey[06:57] Revising My LinkedIn For Business Ebook[08:17] Why I Select My Podcast Guest Carefully[10:32] Be Part Of The Process[11:09] Why You Should Not Outsource Critical Tasks To Your Brand[11:36] What Drives Me?[13:18] See Whatever You Do In Digital Social Differently[16:01] Why Email Is Still The Best Way To Engage With People[18:26] Infuse Concept Of Caring For Other Others In Your ContentNotable QuotesI always say content is the currency of digital media content is the currency of social media.But the important thing is, when we're creating this content, is it all about us? Or is it all about them? Are we creating it to have a one sided transaction so that we are the ones profiting? Or do we truly care about that other person?But the important thing is, I've always wanted to give out my best content, and have always wanted to not hide anything and give what I thought was the best advice, whether or not it made me money. Because I know that this is the information that my community needs.But the central part is I care about I select these people that want to be on my podcast very, very carefully. I am very, very careful as to who I accept, because the whole lens is will this person provide you valuable information?There's nothing wrong with having writers as part of your team. But at the end of the day, you need to be part of that process, you need to be an integral part of that process.What drives me, ladies and gentlemen, is that I want to leave the earth a better place than it was without me. That's what drives me is leaving whatever legacy I can.We all have the ability to influence others through our content. And in doing so, this I believe, as marketers, as entrepreneurs as business owners, this is how we make our own contributionsLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today I have a special guest who is also an influencer marketing expert discussing the past and future trends of influencer marketing. P.J. Leimgruber is the founder of one of the leading influencer marketing platforms, NeoReach, and he most recently founded the Clash App.He developed this new app because he feels that the existing brand deal system that is prominent in influencer marketing is broken. That's why PJ recently joined forces with former Vine sensation, Brendon McNerney, to launch Clash, a short-form video app with built-in creator monetization tools, to solve the problem, and provide the infrastructure necessary to create a more sustainable brand-deal ecosystem.Some of the things we discussed include:How social media user behavior is changing going into 2022, and why that's a good thing (creating more authentic interactions, building off of connections to niche audiences and devoted fanbases)How brands can leverage "microtransactions" and tools like Clash drops to connect with target audiencesWhat changes we will see in 2022 in influencer marketing trendsKey Highlights [02:08] Introduction of Podcast Guest, P.J. Leimgruber[04:28] P.J's Journey To Founding Neoreach and Digital Marketing[07:49] Using Influencers Instead Of Traditional Ads[10:28] The Difference of Social Media Now Compared Before[12:49] Creating More Authentic Interactions[13:53] Why Brand-Deal Relationships Are Broken Today[15:49] The Problem With How Influencers Are Treated[16:51] What Are Microtransactions And How Brands Can Leverage Them[19:07] What Clash App Does[25:25] The Shift For Influencer Marketing Next Year[28:48] Connect With PJNotable QuotesIt doesn't necessarily need to be in the sense of scale, in terms of millions of followers, you know, we're seeing these small micro creators have had great success doing what they love. And that's encouraging to see.I think that creators now more than before, really understanding that distinction, and really think about how do they cultivate those relationships with those top fans. I encourage the folks that are on the brand side, to really rethink their influencer strategy and that lens and think less about the performance metrics and the views and the numbers and really think about the creation of the fostering a connection between the brand and the creator, the same way that the craters foster that connection with their fans.What we want to start thinking is not what the creators think about is how do I break away from needing to fit the mold of what the brands are looking for, into saying that I just want to be me, and I want to build relationships with my fans, I want to build my digital community, I want to connect with my ride or die fans.Guest Links:Neoreach: https://neoreach.com/Clash App: https://clashapp.co/Connect with P.J. on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pj-leimgruber/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

With all of the changes that society, technology, and social media undergoes at a frenzied pace, have you taken a step back to analyze your results from the previous year and use that insight to pivot your digital marketing strategy?This podcast provides you a living example of how I balance my own digital marketing channels, what I learn from the data, and how I plan on applying it to all of my digital marketing this year.I hope this episode both inspires you and provides you with a concrete example to help you truly Maximize Your Digital (and Social, of course!)Key Highlights[02:34] A Little Personal Story[08:06] How to Pivot Your Digital Marketing Strategy For 2022[10:04] Looking At The Output in 2021 [11:26] Blogging As Part of R&D[12:33] My YouTube Output[13:44] My Podcast Output[14:52] Rebranding My Podcast[15:45] My Email Marketing Output[17:05] The Big Three Areas of Digital Marketing[17:53] Initial Results for my Blogging[19:40] Initial Results for my YouTube[20:07] Initial Results for my Podcast[21:21] Initial Results for my Email Marketing[22:26] Conversions On My Website[25:11] My Fractional CMO Services[25:34] My Mastermind Community[26:12] Plans for 2022[28:15] Outlines[29:31] Giving Social Media Algorithm What They Want[30:50] SummaryNotable QuotesBut for me, this is the output I needed, I'm not going to go overboard and say I'm going to blog twice a day, I think blogging four times a week, over the course of a year, says that in my library of content, I have 200 pieces of content. And for most companies that that is enough, you don't even need to blog four times a week. That's just me.And you know, the goal for 2022 is to stay consistent.For me, it's really about building that strategy. And making sure that the content has impact. There's a lot of different directions I can go.As I learned early on in my career, part of a strategy is also deciding what not to do. You really need to stay focused.What I want to do this year is really be more strategic, and raise the quality of both my own content, and those guests that I invite to be on the podcast.I like to keep things really, really simple. I like to provide you clarity, but clarity with impact.To me, it's all about conversions. It's all about getting people on my email list, so that I can communicate with them a little bit more frequently, and promote what I'm doing a little bit more frequently as well.And it really mimics the advice that I've been giving you on this podcast is to focus on non-social evergreen content outlets, my blog, my podcast, and YouTube.But it's also about giving social media algorithms what they want, and they want video.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

One of the benefits of content marketing is in generating thought leadership, but how exactly does it work?This episode will go deep into content marketing, content syndication, traditional media, and how all of it can be leveraged to yield thought leadership. Specifically we will focus in on these 3 points:1. Thought leadership requires a deliberate strategy Associations and nonprofits are authorities on the industries, professions and issues/causes they represent. Association and nonprofit leaders naturally have deep expertise to share. But thought leadership doesn’t just “happen.” This should be supported by a thought leadership strategy - to media, policymakers, members, prospects, donors, etc. 2. Thought leadership involves multiple tactics - but brings many benefits: There is no one way to do thought leadership. Some campaigns are directed more towards policymakers, others towards consumer media, others towards donors. Thought leadership spans speaking engagements, blogging, video, social media, by-lined articles and more. It is not a one-time thing: rather establishing thought leadership requires regularly communicating knowledge, intelligence, and insights. It is a long game, not a short burst, but has huge benefits of building credibility, trust, visibility and recognition. 3. Leverage visibility opportunities by give media what they can use: Thought leadership campaigns can be standalone, though are generally part of a larger PR/visibility campaign for an organization and/or an issue. For any visibility campaign, make sure your “owned media “ (social media channels, blog, Linked In, etc.) is robust. Then make it easy for media to cover. Submit by-lined articles or columns that outlets can run with. Regularly share not just data trends, surveys, and forecasts, but also stories of impact. Associations and nonprofits have so much knowledge but generally share it only with members or donors, etc. That expertise can go so much broader by figuring out the best way of capturing and communicating it.Key Highlights[02:20] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Rick Smith[12:34] Why Deliberate Strategy Is Critical[13:46] The Real Challenge To Content Marketers[16:09] Ways To Build Up Your Credibility[19:41] Multiple Tactics For Thought Leaders[23:50] How To Leverage Opportunities Aligned In What Media Can Use[27:50] Connect With RickNotable QuotesThe challenge people face is, you start off by wanting to build that credibility or be that expert.You have to sit and think, what is it that makes you unique? What is it that you have to offer? You've got to craft your message.People should be doing utilizing every channel they have. If you got to think of it this way, the media is concerned about their audience, they want their audience to have interesting articles and interesting things that they will read. And that they want to read. So the key to doing that is to give them what they want. Guest Links:NewsUSA: https://newsusa.comLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As we enter 2022,  are you looking for some new inspiration for your digital marketing? If so, this is the episode for you!Join me as I give you my suggestions on which 10 channels you should consider launching, or if you are already active but not getting the results you need, relaunching in 2022.Specifically, these 10 things that I discuss in detail on this podcast are:TikTokShortForm VideoYouTube ChannelPodcastPinterestBlogEmail ListMembership CommunityWorkshopCourseKey Highlights [03:22] First Area I Recommend To Invest: TikTok[04:33] How To Launch TikTok Channel[06:07] Looking At The Patterns And Formats[07:10] Type Of Content To Launch In 2022[07:43] The Importance Of Storytelling[10:07] The Third Channel To Launch Or Relaunch[11:00] Type Of Content To Create For YouTube[12:10] Developing Your Own Podcast[13:51] How You Should Think Of Your Podcast[16:00] Fifth Channel To Invest To Pinterest[18:07] Why You Should Be Blogging[19:08] Number 7: Email Marketing[20:44] Develop A Membership Community[21:36] My Community Membership[22:30] Develop A Workshop[26:12] Creating Course For Your BusinessNotable QuotesBegin to like not things that you personally like, but begin to like those things that you think your ideal customer would like.Think the only way to understand this in all honesty is you got to be on the platform, you got to be consuming.Consume process, reengineer and you need to find your own pattern, your own process that works for your company, to be able to do visual storytelling.If you start with the objective of I want to develop relationships, I want to deepen relationships with customers. Or I just want to understand how people that have a passion for something think, or you know, whatever it is, that objective will keep you going will keep your podcast going, I think it's going to be easy to achieve.If you're not sure, do some searches. See if your competitors are on there. See if there are content creators on there already creating content about your market. And if you see enough of it, go for it. If you don't see enough of it, I would still keep an eye on it and consider experimenting with.Really think of email marketing in a way to how can I best develop relationships not only with website visitors to have them opt into my email list, but once they're on my email list, how can I generally develop a better relationship with them that is going to pay higher dividends for my business in the future.It could be a very, very easygoing, low investment of time and resources way of allowing people to access you, but I think from your perspective, it's less about monetizing this and more about deepening the relationships and then getting the feedback for what you need to develop next.If I want to create a course, I'm not going to put all my eggs in one basket, or try to figure out what people want.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Welcome to 2022!After reading all of those blog posts about social media and digital marketing trends for 2022, how are you going to invest your marketing budget this year?This episode is focused on helping you find ROI from under-invested but important aspects of digital marketing in 2022, especially in consideration of recent trends.Specifically, these 10 things that I discuss in detail on this podcast are:Blog Content / SEOLong-Form Lead Generation ContentEmail Marketing / Marketing AutomationLong-Form Video ContentShort-Form Video ContentInfluencer CollaborationsEmployee AdvocacyCustomers and Customer ExperiencePeopleEducationKey Highlights [02:55] First Thing To Invest Your Marketing Budget In 2022[04:24] Ways To Be Resourceful On Your Blog[05:08] Why Search Intent Is Critical[06:13] Second Thing To Invest To[07:45] Third Area: Email Marketing/Automation[09:42] Email Marketing Tools[10:11] Fourth Things To Invest Your Marketing Budget[12:10] Should You Invest On Tiktok?[14:27] The Benefit Of Collaborating With Content Creators[16:29] Seventh Area: Employee Advocacy[17:56] Investing On Customer Experience[19:15] Ninth Item To Invest To[20:13] Invest In Your Own Education[21:55] Ways To Recreate Educational Experience[22:16] SummaryNotable QuotesIt's time to regroup, ton to figure out how to best invest I'm all about every year, or even every quarter, sort of pushing that reset button just so that we're always in alignment. And we always understand the value of every dollar or yen or pound or euro, or whatever currency you spend is in your marketing.Be the source of information by offering them something of value. It could be an eBook, a white paper, a webinar, a pre-recorded demo, but exchange that value for a lead, ie giving them some sort of information in a live or recorded format, to help with your demand gen efforts.Make every email a love letter. And if you can have that philosophy with your emails, I do believe over time, they will get open more they will get read more, you'll build a deeper relationship, and it'll lead to more business for you.There is value in influencer collaborations at the least, of learning how to better do this type of content by actually collaborating with influencers, having them do it for you, having them post to their social networks, but also in the contract, make sure you do this, but get access to the content so that you can utilize it for your own social profiles or website or social ads.And through the art of doing this, you are going to have a natural fan base that won't just amplify and support your own content. But they will talk about you naturally, as well.Invest in yourself, to really keep abreast of what is happening out there to understand the leaders in your industry, how they're handling the current environment, how they manage all these different channels, how they create content, whatever it might be. And obviously, that is something that will reap dividenLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In The Age of Influence, I talk about how leveraging influencers is the best way to incite word of mouth in social media if you don't have a large fanbase.What Mike Baddeley did for his brand Passchier is a case study that you can learn from as to how to go about doing this.We're not talking about randomly paying random influencers with large followings to talk about you. We're talking about strategically building relationships with those that will probably be interested in your product or service and gifting them product to kickstart things.It is an approach that many startups use with success, so listen in to how Mike has used this strategy to literally help build his business.Key Highlights[03:38] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mike Baddeley[06:26] How Mike Started Passchier [08:52] How Mike Promoted His Products[12:08] The Marketing Technique Mike Did To Spread The Word About Handlebars[13:10] How Mike Find Influencers[14:51] The Problem Of Finding Relevant Influencers[16:24] Sustainability Angle[18:25] How To Maintain Relationships and Expand At The Same Time[21:44] Potential TikTok Marketing[22:39] Mike's Advice On Leveraging The Power Of Gifting[24:46] Connect With MikeNotable QuotesThe spread the word key audience is his bike tourists and commuters. Just contacting these influencers on Instagram, or on their websites, and just approaching all these people.You've got to get them in people's hands. And you know, you can't sell a secret member, someone saying that it's such an obvious thing to say, but you've got to get out there. And you've got to get people talking.The journey now is some of the influences we've targeted and had dialogue in there reviewed the product, we need, you know, maintain that relationship. So managing that relationship is a critical part of that journey.They've got an audience in the audience wants to hear information. And so if we can be proactive in providing that and providing product for their customers to to sample as well. So we're giving giveaways to their customer base as well, their member base as well.What people forget is that creators need not just creativity and an audience, but they need content, they need things to get content around, right.And it's a really good reminder that really what it comes down to is the content but also you being able to provide that and those do that have product have the ability to provide.It might be a little bit harder to get people excited about wanting to try your product, but the higher value offer and the more relevant it is for the people you reach out to obviously, the better results you're going to get.Connect with Mike BaddeleyPasschier: https://www.passchier.co.nz/Mike Baddeley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-baddeley-513b2113/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

While many still cringe at the term "influencer marketing," something that has surpassed that buzzword of late is the "creator economy."So what exactly is the creator economy, its relationship to influencer marketing, and how it can be leveraged by both business and, of course, creators?Listen in to understand the historical perspective of the creator economy, and how the pendulum is swinging more in the favor of creators in this Age of Influence.Key Highlights [05:16] The Creator Economy And Its Relationship To Influencer Marketing[07:19] The Golden Era Of Influencer Marketing[10:19] How Content Creators Leverage Advertisements As Main Revenue Sources[10:34] Other Revenue Sources That Content Creators Have[11:34] Social Media Networks As Potential Revenue Source[13:55] What Does Creator Economy Mean For Influencer Marketers?[15:20] How Creator Economy Brings Transparency and Authenticity In Influencer Marketing[16:37] Start Creating Content Now![17:46] SummaryNotable QuotesYou cannot become an online influencer without publishing online content, they go hand in hand. So being a content creator has always been a necessity to yielding influence online. But not all content creators necessarily become influencers.For the first time social networks are actually paying creators to create content, knowing that it is the content and the influence is creating that content that users trust that keeps people coming back to the site.I would argue that we're seeing an even greater democratization of online influence. And simply put, there are more content creators influencing more people than ever before.For the first time social networks are actually paying creators to create content, knowing that it is the content and the influence is creating that content that users trust that keeps people coming back to the site. Content creators prove that they are the only ones who can truly set the trend for what social media users, ie all of us, end up consuming.The most successful relationships are going to be long term, collaborative, and mutual Win-Win.With the democratization of online influence and digital content creation, we can say with certainty that the Creator economy is here to stay. And as a byproduct, it actually will only strengthen the role of influencer marketing, with additional options for marketers, and access to content that continues to build trust and generate results.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Paid Social is a mainstream form of social media marketing, and while many focus on fine-tuning targeting, have you thought about the impact that different ad formats can have on your cost and ultimate ROI?This episode features an interview with Lauren Schwartz, founder of the Creative Marketing Agency The Loft 325.  Lauren is a design professional with over 15 years of experience, including 8 years working in digital marketing.More importantly for us, her special power is in creating profitable creative strategies and creatives for e-commerce brands. and she is especially passionate about creating top-performing ad campaigns and creatives.Listen in for her advice on:Understanding the different ad formats and advantages and disadvantages of eachWhy video ads are the bestTips and tricks to create them and optimize them for maximum conversionKey Highlights [00:01] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Lauren Schwartz[02:58] Changes In Paid Social Over The Years[04:41] Lauren's Journey To Paid Social Marketing[07:09] How To Make Creative Branding And Creativity Organic And Authentic?[09:57] Is Paid Social Beneficial For Businesses?[11:18] Focus On Your Audience First[11:59] Different Ad Formats[14:55] The Trends In Different Story Formats[16:19] Why Video Ads Perform The Best[17:32] Navigating Video ROI[20:25] TikTok Ads[23:02] TikTok Ad Platform vs Facebook/Pinterest Ad[23:38] Ad Targeting and Guidelines[26:26] Tips And Tricks In Creating Ads[30:19] Connect With LaurenNotable QuotesI think the biggest thing is really trying to focus in on creators who just genuinely do give really good testimonials, and really do kind of show that authentic side.I'm making sure that the creators that we choose that if they do shoot content, that it doesn't seem sales, pitchy like I don't want them to seem like they're selling you something, I want them to talk to you I want them to make it seem like like they are really reviewing this product and talking about it.I think really just making sure that you have audiences to even talk to is probably the biggest thing that I would say that you need to focus on first.Now I kind of feel like more people are moving towards just different platforms really, like I don't necessarily think it's I mean, there's, there's so many trends and all the platforms. But I think the biggest thing is just, you know, making sure that it looks very organic.The biggest thing with creating the creative is, you don't have to have like a super high end production. Like you really just have your iPhone and shoot the content. And again, just make it very organic, make it very conversational.Connect with Lauren SchwartzThe Loft 325: https://theloft325.com/Lauren Schwartz on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theloft325/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The other day I was helping my high schooler daughter apply to a summer program, where in addition to her transcript and essays, they asked for her LinkedIn profile URL.Yes, her LinkedIn profile!!!For those avid listeners of my podcast, I also covered a similar topic 2 1/2 years ago in 139: LinkedIn for Students: What Do I Put in My LinkedIn Profile if I am a College Student?If an overwhelming majority of college students, how many high schoolers have a LinkedIn profile in addition to their TikTok, Instagram, and, yes, Snapchat profiles?VERY few.So why am I even talking about this on my podcast?Because if you can picture yourself as a high schooler, who has little to no professional experience, and be able to complete a LinkedIn profile, you will see new ways not only to optimize your own LinkedIn profile, but also your personal branding and content you publish throughout social media.Don't believe me? Listen in, and then let me know what you think!By the way, the free ebook I mention in this episode can be downloaded here: Maximizing LinkedIn for BusinessKey Highlights [02:47] The Notion of LinkedIn Profile for Students[06:21] Which Social Network You Should Nail?[07:31] Strategic Value of Having a LinkedIn Profile[09:24] What Personal Branding Is About[10:01] The Common Application[12:57] Where Does LinkedIn Profile Start?[14:34] What Do I Need For A Background Photo?[16:35] The Professional Headline[17:27] Items You Need To Add To Your Summary or Headline[18:48] What Is The Feature Section?[19:54] How to Rock About Section?[21:36] What Can You Put In Experience Section?Notable QuotesYes, we brand ourselves through our content. But if there's any social network, where our bio is deep, and people will go through it, looking and readiness, and for whatever reason, whether they want to do business with us, whether they want to hire us whatever it is, or in this case, whether they want to consider you as an applicant to their university, they are looking at your LinkedIn profile.If there's any profile on any social network you really got to nail, it is LinkedIn.And I think the big thing here is if you want to brand yourself, and differentiate yourself, and create those emotional attachments, and really showcase who you are as a person, it's really going to come down to those activities.It really begins with that top visual headline, right? When I talk about personal branding, we need to get more and more visual.I think this is really where we look into those strengths that you have, what are those things that you want people to come to your profile to remember about you. And that's what we have here.I highly recommend that you do add this sort of imagery, it could be an image, it could be a video, but it should be something like an award, something that celebrates something that you've done.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I have always thought that businesses can learn a lot from successful nonprofit marketing. The idea is that if a nonprofit that is strapped for resources can connect with their community, you should be able to connect with your own.This episode is all about nonprofit digital marketing, but in a similar vein, the advice here is applicable for all.It is an honor to have my Digital First Mastermind Community member, and someone that I can now call a friend, Beth Hammock on today's episode. Beth is CEO of Hammock Communications and is an expert in both Nonprofit and Higher Education marketing, and I think you will genuinely enjoy her advice as well as our conversation.Some of the digital marketing "magic" advice that Beth has includes:Illusions: Social media strategy - influencers, awareness, acknowledgement, appealsSleight of hand: Google ad grants - getting them and using them. How tos and examples of success. Magician's choice: Video storytelling - how to accomplish this on a nonprofit budgetKey Highlights[02:00] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Beth Hammock[05:54] How Beth Got Into Nonprofits[06:55] The Difference Between Educational Institution and Nonprofit[08:15] The Core of Digital Marketing for Nonprofits[14:30] Increasing Brand Awareness and Appeals[15:52] How to Create Perfect Facebook Ads for Nonprofits?[16:38] Are Social Media Platforms Effective for Nonprofits?[18:51] The Ideal Google Ad for Nonprofits[20:55] Successful Campaigns Stories from Google Ads[21:44] The Concept of Nonprofit Membership[23:00] Nonprofits Incentives and Businesses[24:39] Leveraging Resources In Your Community[28:00] Beth's Magicians Choice[28:49] Accomplishing Video Storytelling for Nonprofits[30:40] Services Offered By Beth[31:45] Connect With BethNotable QuotesSo nonprofits, rely on grants, community business support, events, a lot of them, that's where they get their funding, but really, in the United States, a majority of funding comes from individuals. And if they can just get connected, that's the marketing piece, build brand awareness, engage people to start building those relationships.I think you start with the core principles of marketing, which storytelling is the core. And you can tell stories if you don't have a lot of money.So development communications, you want to show the impact of giving. To illustrate that has a little bit of content and a call to action of giving now.I think that nonprofits can really improve though on their exclusivity is, especially the way that they message it, if you just would say one benefit, and shout it and it's something really good.Connect with Beth HammockHammock Communications: https://hammockcommunications.com/Beth Hammock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethhammock1/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you were to look at my LinkedIn profile headline or the main menu on my website, you might see a title that you don't recognize:Fractional CMOA lot of people ask me exactly what a Fractional CMO is and what I do as one, while others, after learning about it, want to follow in my footsteps.So what exactly is a Fractional CMO? And why might you want to hire one to help you with your digital marketing?Listen in as I reveal all!Key Highlights [02:31] How My Journey Into Becoming A Fractional CMO Began[04:13] What Got Me Into Fractional CMO[06:30] The Reason I Wrote The Age of Influence Book[07:22] What Are the Requirements to Become A Fractional CMO?[08:48] The Concept Of A CMO[09:23] Ways of Working With Fractional CMO[10:19] The Bad Side of Being Fractional CMO[13:10] The Key Benefit of A Fractional CMO[13:23] Fractional CMO vs External Consultant[14:16] My Role As A Fractional CMO[17:18] SummaryNotable QuotesIt's the reason why I'm writing my next book on general digital marketing. Because so many companies wanted help with their influencer marketing, yet, there were so many other things they needed help with. This requires obviously, to have a certain amount of experience that you could create and implement a digital and social media marketing strategy for any business.Social media changes over time, you know how well you perform on the different digital marketing channels changes over time. So the needs are always evolving.In other words, you may want to work with a fractional CMO, they may not have the capacity, the bandwidth to work with you. But I believe it is great because it allows you to work with different companies. It allows you to gain experience working with different companies in different industries.In other words, if you're not quite ready to hire a full-time CMO, but don't want to outsource your marketing leads to an agency or a general project-based consultant, a fraction of the CMO brings experienced leadership to help accelerate your strategic objectives, and reach the next level growth and profitability.The role that a fractional CMO will play will come down to a combination of the needs of the company hiring them, and the skills and experience that the marketing professional brings to the table.If we can find the right person, I hope this really opens your eyes to the potential because look, digital marketing, can be done anywhere in the world, but it requires a lot of different skill sets. And there aren't a lot of really, really experienced people out there.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A lot of us in digital marketing tend to treat content marketing like a digital machine. Create this content and expect these results. Unfortunately, this leads to creating a lot of very average content that everyone else is publishing on the Internet, adding to the noise and not driving any impactful outcome for your business.Georgios Chasiotis, Managing Director of the B2B SaaS content marketing agency Minuttia, wants to change that. By looking at the current trends in content marketing based on his expansive client work, he wants to give you his advice on:Why "copycat content" isn't going to get you the results that you needWhat type of content you need to create based on your company's lifecycle stageWhy you need to focus on creating a library instead of a publication and how to do thatReady to significantly improve your content marketing for 2022 and beyond? Then listen in!!!Key Highlights[01:20] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Georgios Chasiotis[04:03] When and Why Clients Come to Minuttia?[06:48] Is Content Marketing Equivalent to Blogging and Blog Content?[09:09] How to Avoid Copycat Content[11:03] Things to Consider When Creating Copycat Content[13:44] Minuttia's Process On Keyword Research[18:22] Keyword Strategy for Middle Stage Companies[20:03] How to Build Topical Authority[23:05] Guidelines on Library Content[28:42] When to Expect Traffic Results[32:12] Content Promotion[33:34] Connect with Georgios[34:05] SummaryNotable QuotesDon't limit yourself, experiment with different content from us, find the ones that work best for you and for your audience at the same time, and focus on them. I think that the way keyword research and topic ideation, or the way we described earlier, people are going to open a keyword data provider and they are going to try to find a keyword. I think this is wrong. Because decisions that most companies make are heavily influenced by metrics such as for example, keyword difficulty, okay? But all these metrics have weaknesses, and you cannot allow these metrics to form your decisions.At that early stage, we would advise the company to publish content that demonstrates the value of the product, or we would advise them to look for guest posting opportunities in an effort to leverage the audience of another website, okay, or arrange co-marketing activities are very heavily focused on content.I would say that when you have very strong indications of product-market fit, and you are like, You know what, we are ready to start growing. This is when you can start investing into content marketing, content creation, SEO and so on.The more firsthand experience you have, the more you understand, for instance, the market price, that influences will charge youConnect with Georgios ChasiotisMinuttia: https://minuttia.com/Georgios Chasiotis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgioschasiotis/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Leapfrogging (pun intended as you will see shortly) off of my previous episode #234 speaking about the virtues of being a marketing generalist, here is a case in point: If you want to become a marketing leader, you need to have all of your digital marketing bases covered.What bases need to be covered? And what does a comprehensive digital marketing program look like?I am honored to have my friend and Digital First Mastermind Community Andrew Smith on as my guest today offering us an x-ray view of the digital marketing program that he is running as the Senior Marketing Manager for Leap, the leading all-in-one home improvement contractor sales software.Leap sells to other businesses so the program being described is a B2B digital marketing program, a treat for you B2B marketers. But even if you are a B2C or nonprofit marketer, the lessons learned from Andrew's experience are 100% applicable to your situation.Key Highlights[00:57] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Andrew Smith[03:55] Andrew's B2B Digital Marketing Background[04:44] What is Leap And What Does It Do?[07:27] Where To Begin Digital Marketing Strategy?[10:14] Deciding on How Much to Invest In Each AR Activities[13:32] Criteria To Look At When Deciding About Changes In Budget[15:18]  Targets Set For Marketing By The Management[17:31] Verticals Based On Data[24:44] Andrew's Advice For Marketers In Marketing Technology[29:22] Upcoming Leap Features[32:44] Connect with AndrewNotable QuotesIt's being at least in front of those people and keeping them at least engaged to the degree that they don't tell you to go away that then when they're ready to pull that trigger, you're still front of mind enough that they are aware of you to do that.Being able, to know that what you do is going to produce a certain amount is a good place to be rather than sort of doing something and not knowing what's going to happen.It's more about the quality of that content, rather, the budget to reach those people since we have that covered. So there's really no category that we're not in, but it's creating the content for the vertical that's more important, I think.Start out small, prove a little prove a proof of concept, right? If you're doing you know, advertising or content marketing, or email or any of the channels that you're not currently in that you need some budget for that and try something you know, small or free.The other flip side of being in a company where the culture is very collaborative and productive, so that you know, what you need in marketing, from the product or from sales or from customer success, you have those people in those relationships that are willing to help you achieve what you want to do, as well as for the benefit of the company.Connect with Andrew SmithLeap: https://leaptodigital.comAndrew Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsmith1443/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

"The riches are in the niches.""You gotta niche down."You've heard these over the years, including on this podcast. And I don't disagree with the advice if you want to gain visibility in a noisy market.However, if you are a marketer or a marketing entrepreneur, just owning one niche might not be the ideal solution to your strategy and most likely not for your customers.Listen in as I share my own experience and advice and make the case for becoming more of a digital and social media marketing generalist.Key Highlights[02:27] Why It's Dangerous To Stick To A Niche?[02:50] How I Began Blogging[05:51] Wanting to Be A "Doctor of Social Media"[06:57] Offering Additional Value Beyond Niche[9:10] The Time I Went Generalist[10:34] Launching My Fractional CMO Service[12:29] Going Back to the Role of Generalist[13:06] Why You Need to Have a Broader Knowledge[15:31] My Work As A Fractional CMO[18:15] SummaryNotable QuotesIn other words, if you go to a doctor, you don't tell the doctor what you have, you tell the doctor your symptoms, and they propose something for it, that you might have this, you might have that, let's take some X rays, let's hear some medicine.If I want to pursue best practices, in my job, in my work in my career in my life, I have to provide the best thing that businesses need.Social networks don't exist in a vacuum. Social media does not exist in a vacuum. It's all part of digital marketing, which is all part of marketing.if your business obviously has something that is competitive in one specific niche area, it makes sense to go for it.Customers don't just use the tool to use a tool, they use a tool to solve a problem. Businesses don't look for people who seek out people with a niche, because they have a need for that niche. They have a problem that they want to solve.Niche gives you visibility. But it doesn't always solve all the problems that people that have an interest in a niche have. In order to become a generalist, you need to have niche knowledge. But it's not just one niche at the end of the day. It's a combination of niches.This really defines the current work that I do as a fractional CMO. Because it goes beyond just one niche, one category, it goes down to the problems that companies have, and the potential solutions for them. Using the entire toolkit of tools and channels that Digital Marketing provides.I do believe if you're not known for anything, the niche, without a doubt gives you that visibility. But as you niche, I want you to be thinking about the broader picture of the role of the generalists. And I don't want you to be afraid to go outside of your niche to gain other expertise, which I believe you will need, regardless of what niche you decide for what industry.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What does the term "affiliate marketing" conjure up in your mind?For those of you who have read The Age of Influence, you should remember that I believe that affiliate marketing is one of the earliest forms of influencer marketing. Not only does affiliate marketing provide many of the benefits that you can receive from influencer marketing, but it can also directly impact your sales, SEO, word-of-mouth, and other digital marketing metrics.To clarify what exactly affiliate marketing is and what are the best practices for utilizing it in your business, I am honored to have Kyle Kostechka as my special guest. Kyle is Business Development Director for the oldest and leading affiliate marketing company, Clickbank, and spends his days consulting with both brands and affiliates.I hope this episode is an eye-opening one that helps you take advantage of what affiliate marketing can do for your company.Key Highlights[02:47] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Kyle Kostechka[06:31] Who Is Clickbank?[15:50] ClickBank's Features[16:57] How Much Does ClickBank Costs?[21:22] How Does ClickBank Get Traction and Get Affiliate Sign Up?[22:52] The Mistakes People Do in Affiliate Marketing[27:30] Tip from Kyle[30:33] ClickBank Success Stories[33:57] The Best Practice to Follow to Be Successful[37:10] One Mistake That Companies Make With Affiliate Marketing[41:54] Connect With KyleNotable QuotesYou have to be really cognizant about in speak a language that's going to be attractive to them and make sense of them. That's how a lot of these deals start is you just have to go out, be bold, and say hi to somebody.One of the biggest things to remember with affiliates, especially when you're in a b2b, it's the trust is what you're paying for with those commissions.So if you find some and they are affiliates, that is an immensely valuable way of getting into that very niche conversation that otherwise would be very difficult to do. Remember that relationships are key. What I mean by that is a lot of affiliate marketing, the deal just doesn't always happen perfectly the first time, it takes some time to massage and get to where it needs to go.So even if it takes time, and that patience, if you build the relationships along the way, you know, it almost becomes a switch that you could flip on for traffic and revenue. Don't lose sight of the importance of those relationships in this community because it will pay dividends not only in the short term but definitely in the long term.Connect with Kyle KostechkaAffiliated: Clickbank's Official Affiliate Marketing Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/affiliated-clickbank-s-official-affiliate-marketing/id1547482335Clickbank: https://clickbank.comLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A lot has been said about blogging, both good and bad. Is it dying? Isn't social media more important? All of these arguments miss the point: In a Digital First world, being visible in search engines should be of utmost importance to every business, and, when done right, blogging holds the keys to success.Learn from my own success in blogging and why I continue to double - triple - quadruple down on it and the concrete steps that your business can take to do the same in this episode of my podcast.Key Highlights[01:31] When Did I Start The Process of Doubling Down On My Blogging[02:07] What Can I Do To Get The Word Out About My Book?[03:33] Seach and Social on Social Media[04:19] YouTube and Google Search Engine Strategy[06:23] The Things That Dominate Search Engine Results[07:33] What You Need to Do If You Find Bad Content On Your Website[09:27] Why I Create My Own Library of Content[12:42] The Statistics I Get After Creating Library of ContentNotable QuotesSo list building strategies, and then leveraging technology that allows you to utilize marketing automation, to improve your chances of converting people on your list.You need to share your perspective, you need to help people you need to help them make or help other businesses make the right decision, and they are not being served by the current search results.Blogging is about building equity. It's about creating assets.I'm building up my library, and I'm seeing that the strategy is working because I'm genuinely creating useful content for people without trying to sell them a tool.I am going to start treating all this content not as a one and done, but as assets that have long term shelf life, and I'm going to start a process of revising them.If you're not creating that content that is truly useful and resourceful that would normally be in the format of a blog because you are missing out on the search aspect of this. In fact, everybody's searching is going to your competitor, or they're going to irrelevant or bad content.It begins with the mindset that the search engine rankings are exposing bad incompletes old or irrelevant content and my company or me, I can do better. I am the best I am the expert, our company's the expert, we need to get this content out there. And when you have that mindset and when you have that passion, you can achieve exactly what I did.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Influence marketing will continue to be a critical part of digital marketing and only increase in importance as brands' organic social media reach continues to decline while newer form of short-form video that are the staple of many social media sites make it challenging for businesses to create and compete with the creativity of the global social media user base.That's why I'm especially excited to interview Sanna Ödmark, Head of Marketing for the Swedish influencer marketing agency Cure Media. You see, more companies are investing more money into influencer marketing, but they aren't necessarily doing it in an effective way.In fact, only 30% of CMO's in a survey that Cure Media conducted answered they know how to collect accurate ROI data from the channel, which is far behind other digital channels, such as website (55%) and SocialMedia (54%).That is why our topic that we discuss,  how to measure success in influencer marketing, is of critical importance.Key Highlights[04:43] What is Cure Media?[06:32] Sanna's Research About Influencer Marketing[09:04] How to Measure Effect of Influencer Marketing[14:41] Mistakes that Marketers Do When Measuring Influence and Marketing[21:31] Ways to Best Measure the Full Effect of Influencer Marketing[26:02] Why Long-term Approach to Influencer Marketing Is Important[29:27] Connect with Sanna and Cure MediaNotable QuotesWithout the correct ROI data, it's impossible to measure whether the activity has been successful, or to debt and which channels drive the most sales.One of the mistakes that many brands do today is that they work with influencers in sales marketing in a silo not using it, as you say, as an integrated part of the digital marketing infrastructure. Everything needs to go and be measured hand in hand.The strength of the channel is the ability to create these brand ambassadors that can talk to your audience in a way that they trust relate to, and rely on. And this is the relationship that you need to take time to build.If you haven't done any major changes in those channels like if the bodies/tactics are the same, you can quite easily attribute those changes or improvements to influence marketing. And if you do this over time to do a very concentrated period of punishments among influencers, you can, over time see trends and patterns. And it will eventually become easier to draw conclusions to learn based on these insights and data.I think what brands really need to remember is that this short term attitude towards influence marketing, this campaign based approach is in direct conflict, where the primary strength of the channel, which is relationship building,  authenticity, credibility, and just like in real life, it takes time to build trust and relationships. And taking a short-term approach to influence marketing is not the best way to go as this ignores the actual goal and value of the channel. Connect with Sanna OdmarkCure Media: https://www.curemedia.comLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

We are all using digital marketing to grow our business, and in doing so we are creating brand equity along the way. Brand equity is a powerful concept that doesn't appear in your income statement but indirectly helps you grow your business in tandem with your digital and social media marketing.When it comes to brand equity, there are some legal aspects that are important to understand so that what you grow in your business becomes rightfully and legally yours. This is especially true if your dream is to sell your company to a larger entity or receive funding from venture capitalists.For that reason, we have a unique interview with someone today, Bao Tran, an IP attorney who is launching a new startup to help democratize the patent application process. In this interview you will learn:1) Why brandings are a significant part of company valuation2) Different innovative ways brands can be protected with Trademarks3) Different ways brands can be protected with CopyrightsAfter listening to this episode you will be able to navigate the legal system from a branding perspective and understand what next steps you might want to take.Key Highlights[02:54] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Bao Tran[07:29] Company Valuation[10:00] The Ways Companies Can Protect Their Brand and Valuation[12:53] Things That You Can Get Trademarked[14:58] Ways You Can Distinguish Your Product[17:03] Why Trademark Clearance Search Is Important?[17:26] Trademark Search Options[20:00] What Are Copyrights?[21:35] Best Practices for Copyrights[24:16] The Third Element in Trademark Context[26:17] How Can I Protect NFT?[27:37] Connect with BaoNotable QuotesIn our present world that most of the value is in the consumer recognition of your brand and that's why your work and you know, and your co-workers work in marketing is super critical to the value of a company.The point here is it's under your control. If you don't want anybody else to come in, you can do that, if you want to allow people coming in, in exchange for a royalty you can do that is under your control.But you know, when you're doing that for a very for a year, if you're stretching out to a year period, the risk is increasing that possibly somebody could enter your business ahead of you, and then block you from using that name.It’s what we call a specimen. So you just upload that to the copyright, very inexpensive, and, you know, you can do it yourself and get that protection, easy protection.If you think that somebody is going to reuse that, then you want to control that by having a copyright registration. Copyright registration allows you to then go and pursue the party that you know, you think is misusing your copyright.Connect with Bao TranBao Tran on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugeidea/Email Bao at btran@patentpc.comBao's New Software Product: https://www.powerpatent.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you're doing your social media for business or yourself the same as you have for the last few years, your time is up. All of the trends in social media show us that we truly need to think visual first in so many ways in order to gain visibility within social media news feeds.In this episode I analyze all of the changes that have occurred in social media over the years, putting even niche platforms like Tsu and Ello (remember those?!?) into perspective. From this I believe the future of social media and thus social media marketing becomes clear, and I finish this episode with my advice on the ideal trifecta for your social media marketing going forward into 2022 and beyond...Key Highlights[01:33] Introduction[02:40] The History of Social Media[05:15] The Emergence of New Social Media Platforms[07:55] Dynamic and Emergence of Reels[10:28] Pinterest Dynamic[12:06] What Are Video Pins?[12:28] How To Get More Impressions from Different Social Media Platforms[14:13] The Effects of the Changes in Social Media[15:26] Tools You Can Do For Livestreaming[17:13] The Use of Video Content[17:59] Easy Ways of Repurposing Video Content[19:39] Why All Social Networks Now Want Content Creators[20:53] Get Paid for Sharing New Reels[21:31] The Other Important Type of Content[21:41] What Are Idea Pins?[23:00] Why Carousel Images Perform Better[25:12] Where Does Influencer Marketing Come to Play in Content Creatio?[27:18] SummaryNotable QuotesWhere we start with everything is we need to have a digital presence and the digital presence, the digital gateway becomes our website.If you want to get more impressions on Instagram, you do reels. If you want to get more impressions on Pinterest, you do video pins. More impressions mean above the funnel visibility and brand awareness does it add to more clicks or not, is a whole other story.It's about showing yourself showing up doing real-time content. You can't do reels you do videos igtv. But if you can do something longer, and cut it up into something as engaging as real, it's a new skill set that we sort of all has to learn. If you want to get the most visibility for your content, almost everywhere, video is going to be the key.The reels is all about entertainment. The carousel, the idea pins, and carousel images are more about education. And what's really interesting is that your results are going to vary.If you can't create the content, there is a ton of people out there that can't create the content are creating the content that you need to figure out ways to collaborate with. That's the heart of what I wrote about in the age of influence.People completely misunderstand, misinterpret influencer marketing, it's tapping into the influence of others in social media, whether they have 100 followers, or have 1000 followers.People that have influenced people that are able to build followers are a great content creator.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In all of the social media platforms that exists and the various marketing tools that businesses can use to support your presence there, there is one social network for which there is one tool that rules them all.That social network is Pinterest, and the dominating tool is Tailwind.Learn from Senior Community Manager of Tailwind, Melissa Megginson all about their tool and comprehensive best practices not just for Pinterest, but also for Instagram and Facebook, which Tailwind supports.Key Highlights[04:09] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Melissa Megginson[06:14] What is Tailwind and How Melissa Started[08:39] Pinterest's Evolution[11:28] What Type of Pins Should I Be Posting?[15:30] Melissa's Advice When Creating Idea Pins[17:37] Best Format and Practices for Video Pins[18:03] Does Repurposing from Other Platforms Work?[21:51] What is Tailwind Create?[24:38] Tailwind Communities[29:53] Best Practices and Recommendations for Pinterest Ads[31:52] How to Do Keyword Research on Pinterest[33:24] What Makes Tailwind Different from Other Platforms?[36:48] How Should I Approach Instagram Through Tailwind?[39:30] Melissa's Advice on Facebook Marketing Strategy[43:38] Final Advice[44:31] Connect with Melissa and Tailwind Team[45:05] Summary[47:17] OutroNotable QuotesI would definitely think about it as a way to reach a broader audience. So, you don't want to be giving away everything that you have on your website and an idea pen because you still want to drive people to your website.It's just super simple to get that really top of funnel, introduce yourself to the Pinterest audience to new potential buyers and pull them in so that once they're following you, you can hit them with those video pins that people can click through on or the static pins that people can click through on.So, building up your, your website, your email list, all of that is really important, but you need people to land there first.Start with the organic content that's performing for you. I think that's a really good way to just sort of juice what's already happening and getting bad content that's already performing well in front of the right people. In social media marketing in general, we talked about the need to be consistent. I think when creating any kind of social media posts, you need to think about the story that you're telling rather than the individual posts that you're creating.Use the platforms. Don't just go in as a marketer. Use the platforms yourself. Get to know them, get to know what you like, get to know what is performing well, and you'll do a lot better as a mark Get her.Find Our More about Tailwind: Click here to start for free and get a $30 credit for a future subscription – only for my community! (affiliate link)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Digital and social media are the field of dreams for every business. The problem is that you first need a roadmap to get started, but even with that roadmap you will have your successes and failures, new discoveries, and learn a lot both about your target audience as well as your product and branding.This is why a mindset of never-ending experimentation is critical for success in digital and social media marketing as well as if you have a digital product or service. But its not just experimentation that is important: Equally important is understanding when you need to pivot and then actually making that alignment.To me digital marketing is art, which is why the creative aspect excites me on a daily basis. I sincerely hope that you find some inspiration in this episode.Key Highlights[01:54] How Neal Created His Membership CommunityThe story of how Neal's membership community started and why it was now called the "mastermind of business leaders".[05:29] Why I Like Setting Up Quarterly Flags[06:55] When To Do Reassessment?[08:57] The Importance of Building Library of ContentWhat does the library of content do in my business?[11:53] What Did I Do To Promote My Book?[13:27] What Do I Need To Do To Start Generating Results?[14:00] Why You Need To Experiment NOW![16:14] The Critical Items On Influencer Marketing[17:02] Read The Signals And Act On It!Now that you know how to read the signals, what is the next step? Act on them![19:43] Experiment and Get the Data[21:26] ConclusionNotable QuotesIt's always you're only as good as your current quarter sales, not even your previous quarter sales.When we launch a business, or we're working on behalf of an employer, or an entrepreneur, we want to make an impact. And I do too, in everything that I do. So if I see something not making the impact that I thought it would make, then it's time to reassess.With digital, anything is possible. And you don't know what is possible until you have your tentacles out there.A little tweak is sometimes all you need. with digital to start generating results.But the key thing here is that number one, you got to be experimenting. That's obvious. Number two, you got to be listening for the signals.Digital marketing is more about an analog way of thinking than a digital way of thinkingYou want to excel in social media marketing, you need to be an active consumer of social media first.Relationships are critical. You know this from those that read the age of influence, and my views on influencer marketing. But it also means to have critical thinking analytical skills, to be able to piece things together for me to go have that aha moment.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The world of advertisement has truly changed. Consumers are now savvy and smart – they know if the advertiser is genuine or not. In addition, the channels in which you can connect to your customers are continuously expanding. As a product-based business owner, you may wonder, how can I make my business a success?Well, worry no more because, in this episode, we have the experts and the combined force behind The Product Boss Podcast -- Minna Khounlo-Sithep and Jacqueline Snyder, who will help you make your dreams come true! Join me as we learn everything you need to build a successful product-based business - and the importance that you need to always place on relationships.Key Highlights[01:28] Introduction of Podcast Guest, The Product Boss -- Minna Khounlo-Sithep and Jacqueline Snyder[02:26] Who Are The Product Boss?[03:42] How "The Product Boss" Started[05:42] How Marketing Products Changed in the Age of Social Media[08:46] The Most Effective Way of Connecting with Your Customer[10:13] Will Product-Based Business Work on a Team?[14:15] Curating the Right People to Talk About Your Brand[17:49] Most Successful Ways to Grow a Product-Based Business Today[21:12] The Things I Should Pay Attention as A Product-Based Business Owner[22:46] Mistakes to Avoid When Running a Product-Based Business[25:03] The Product Boss' Advice[29:03] Connect with Jacqueline and MinaNotable QuotesWhat we've seen is people buy from people. So no matter what you're doing, if you're building a business right now, it really is about that relationship.It's really about getting customers to be obsessed with you. And it's harder for them to be obsessed with you trust you feel like they're part of your life or that you resonate, or they resonate with your part of life, when it's a product that's forward facing versus a person that's telling you why the product matters to you, and why it matters to them.Whenever we coach people to hire on for their team, it's values based. So you hire for values before you hire for skill, because you can always teach skill.The influencer has to be able to develop their own story how they speak how they talk. That's why their audience engage with them. And so it really is about the story and how it's told by the influencer.We're digital marketers, we could come up with 100 different ideas of courses, and coaching programs, and masterminds and all the things but we try and stay sort of within our niche and make sure that we're kind of honing in and focusing on what our customers need.Guest Links:Jacqueline and Mina's Podcast: The Product Boss: https://www.theproductboss.com/podcastWebsite: https://theproductboss.comSignature Course: https://multistreammachine.comShop1in5: https://shop1in5.comLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

SEO ranking is critical for most business because it is the key to increase the brand’s visibility and attract potential customers where people search for information – especially now that we truly living Digital First. When we think of SEO, the first word that quickly comes to our mind is keyword. But if we dig deep into it, you’ll realize that SEO is not only about using relevant keywords. Come and join with me in this discussion with the CEO of bubblidigital, Neil Sheth, on how to figure out the other ways you can create content that will rank high on search engines and the real value that SEO offers.Key Highlights[02:53] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Neil Sheth [05:21] How Neil Got into SEO and Content Creation [08:44] What does an SEO agency do for their clients?Neil shared what an SEO agency do for their clients and why clients should hire one.[11:24] The Process of Creating Customized Plan for Each CustomerNot all plans are alike. Customers get customized plans for each of them based on where they're at, their goals, and the results they get.[12:49] SEO Compass[13:05] How to Implement SEO?Learn the four areas when implementing SEO. [13:22] Technical SEO Optimization [16:39] How to Find the Right and Relevant Topics That Increase Brand Visibility[17:50] Content Analysis[21:16] Content FormatsWhat are the different content formats that can help me maximize my eyeballs?[23:42] Why Should I Look at Google's First Page Results?[24:24] Neil's Tips to Rank Your Site Better[27:24] How to Get Quicker Results Using Less Competitive Keywords[30:05] Connect with NeilNotable Quotes:SEO is a learning game.I know more than they do about the subject, why aren't I speaking, and it but it comes down to the learning and the reps that you put in, right. And those experiences, sometimes money losing experiences, but it all adds up.SEO is always the I see as the bonus, whether it ranks or not, is there should be enough benefit before it even ranks. We talk about the benefit and the value, and the time that you're going to save, and most importantly, how your brand just going to look epic on the back of it.I'm not gonna write about all these things, or when I'm with a client, but what is relevant to your business, and most importantly, to your customers, or prospective customersIf you want to rank for those keywords that are critical to your business, you need to be seen as an authority in Google's eyes. And a way that you're seen as an authority is that you have a lot of content on that subject.If you're expecting to rank for a keyword, then your contents going to be worthy of ranking. So, analyze the content, are you ranking today? Are you being indexed?Guest LinksNeil's SEO Agency:  https://bubblidigital.comNeil’s Content On Demand Company: https://writeful.lyLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Do you ever feel that sometimes your content or branding just isn't correctly aligned with your business? Or that your message doesn't leave the viewer or listener wanting to learn more about you or do business with you? Perhaps you or your business have pivoted, but your content or branding has not?These were the questions I have been struggling with, and a series of events, including my recently attending Podcast Movement, let me on a journey to rebrand this podcast, changing it from Maximize Your Social Influence to Your Digital Marketing Coach. Learn all of the reasons why I did so and what takeaways it might have for you and your brand and content in this first episode of Your Digital Marketing Coach.Key Highlights[0:53] Introduction to Your Digital Marketing Coach Podcast[03:05] Why Should I Consume the Content I Am Publishing?[5:34] Moving from Social Business Unplugged to Maximize Your Social Influence[07:05] Why Do I Need to Do Something Different to Stand Out?[08:51] Your Content Has To Be Aligned With Your Business[09:33] When Did I Realized that My Content Was Not Directly Serving my Business?[11:04] Rebranding My Podcast[11:07] Your Digital Marketing Coach[13:07] Why I Took The "Your Digital Marketing Coach" Branding[13:20] Do Something That Sparks Joy in You[16:04] What's Important in Deciding A Strategy?[17:28] Why You Should Align Your Content With Your Business NowNotable QuotesIn digital marketing and the words of John Lee Dumas, you need to do your reps in order to get better. And it begins by actually consuming the content or the type of content that you're publishing.But because it is so competitive now, you know, when people do a search for a certain keyword, you need to be doing something different. You need to stand out with a fluffy name.And even in content creation, in marketing, if doing what you're doing in your business of doing what you're doing does not spark joy. If you're not excited about every time you press the record button for a video for a podcast, or when you start writing for a blog, if that does not excite you, and something's wrong. Maybe you should be doing something else. Maybe you should be delegating it to someone else who is passionate about it. Because that is what sparks business. That's what sparks growth. That's what sparks creativity.If there's something holding you back, if you're ready, you need to go. There is nothing to be afraid of. Especially if what you're doing is your branding, whatever it is, if it doesn't, if it doesn't spark joy, right?If in alignment in terms of content in terms of branding, in terms of launching something new, if it makes sense, you owe it to yourself to do it now, rather than wait, I am one who likes to live life without any regrets.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The world of marketing is continuously changing, especially during this time of the pandemic. Virtual summits are now becoming popular and the most effective digital lead generation tools today.If you are to start your first summit – or even thinking of creating one, this episode will surely help you understand the basics and elements you need for your own virtual summit. So come and listen as we learn “Virtual Summit 101” with the CEO of Hey Summit, Rob Gelb.Key Highlights[1:37] What is Hey Summit?[4:35] How Rob Started Hey Summit[10:44] Hey Summit Case Studies Success Story[12:28] Different Types of Events[16:50] Should I Go for A Broad Topic or Niche Subject?Choosing a subject or topic to discuss in a virtual summit can be challenging. Should I go for a broad topic or a niche subject?[21:05] Categorizing Subject and Topics[25:21] How to Create a SummitLearn the steps and important elements when creating a summit.[28:10] Rob's Advice to Companies Doing Webinars/Virtual Summit[31:21] Mistakes to Avoid When Launching Your First Virtual Summit[33:23] The Importance of Creating Attendee PersonaWhy is the process of understanding my target audience critical? How can it help me give value to them?[35:08] Final Tips from RobNotable Quotes:One is, thinking about what it is that your objective, what is your objective with writing an event.The second thing is that like, getting back to the why, like, why are you doing this in the first place is super important. And we say to everyone, build your attendee persona first, just anything else that you're doing with digital marketing? Who are you selling to? who aren't you selling to? If you can't answer who you're not selling to, that means you're trying to make something for everybody. And that means you'll end up serving nobody.So, I think that when you're thinking about virtual events, no virtual fences are no two ones are the same, nor should they be. But you also should be understanding like, what is it that you think when it comes to engagement? Like, why are you doing this?Don't assume that you have to be everywhere to all people makes you that authority. Adding your very specific bit to the conversation as a starting point. It's a step. It's not a winner-take-all-in-one event type thing.I think you do, what you do need to do is make sure that if you're creating, are you thinking about creating a summit, that it's work that it works for your webinar strategy, and that your webinar strategy works for the summitNot worrying too much about trying to be everything to all people at one, you know, at the same time. Also, being clear about the speakers that you're bringing on about the expectations.Links & ResourcesFree Trial and 15% Lifetime Discount for HeySummit: https://nealschaffer.com/heysummit (affiliate)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As I’ve been doing social media marketing for quite some time, people often ask me, how do I become more influential on social media? How do I monetize my influence? How do I monetize social media?But the thing is, should you really make social media platforms your business?In today’s episode, I share with you the difference between running a business and leveraging social media platforms to promote your business. And what’s more valuable than monetizing your social media presence.Key Highlights[1:16] Monetizing Social Media[1:38] My Social Media Marketing Journey[5:31] The Importance of Having a Product When Monetizing Social Media InfluenceWhen monetizing social media, you need to understand the difference between running a business and leveraging platforms. You need to have a product or business first, then use social media platforms to promote them, not making these platforms your business.[07:08] Determining Your Content Medium [08:38] What Platform Should I Create Based on My Content Medium?[10:40] Creating a Platform While Leveraging it to Build RelationshipsHow can you create a platform and use your influence to build relationships with your potential customers and network?[12:57] Which Social Media Platform Should I Spend More Time On? [14:06] The New Digital First LinkedIn Group[15:39] Content Creation Being a Team Effort [18:05] Understand Social Media[18:41] Building Relationships With Products and ServicesWhere and how can I get a return of investment from the relationship I have built?Notable QuotesYou need to understand the difference between business and platform. Social media is not a business.What I mean by platform is, if you really want to have impact in social media, you can't be everywhere at once, you got to pick your battles. It's about business. And it's why I build a team outsourcing many tasks. It's why I talked about content creation being a team effort. Because you should not be working in your business, you should be working on your business.Build a very nimble team of hiring experts around the world that are really good at what they're good at. You can create some scale, and build a platform, which allows you to focus on your business. And that is how you leverage all this for your business. Don't build social media influence, build business.  Build influence, to build your business. But that to me, and the money you can make from being able to sell more products and services, has way more value than you trying to monetize your own presence.Links MentionedDigital First LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2321400/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The power of podcasting is becoming more evident today as big companies and entrepreneurs are now using it in several ways to scale their businesses. In this episode, I'm joined by Luis Ryan Diaz, Founder and Chief Growth Strategist of Podcast Domination. Podcast Domination is a company that helps podcasters with podcast management, right from launching to growing and monetizing your podcast. He joins me to share everything on how to launch your podcast and use it to grow your business. Key Highlights[4:30] Why podcast is now being preferred as a business tool[7:50] Strategic ways of leveraging your podcast[12:25] Using podcast for expert interviews[14:41] Using your podcast to build relationships and connections[16:49] Interviewing influencers in your podcast[19:18] All about Podcast Domination[20:20] How to grow and monetize your podcast[21:43] Podcasting trends you should be aware of[24:26] Podcasting for SEO purposes[26:27] Connect with Luis[27:08] Final thoughtsNotable QuotesIt’s the relationship that you can build with somebody not only if you are just interviewing them, but also just through how they listen and how they consume podcasts.I think there’s a lot of hesitation around doing it right and also the hesitation in people’s minds whether anyone will care to listen. But I do see bigger companies and brands using it.The podcast, when done right, can show inherent value.You don’t need a very big podcast. You need a podcast that solves problems for your audio customers.Links & ResourcesConnect with Luis Website https://www.podcastdomination.co/Email luis@podcastdomination.coMentioned ResourcesPodcast Domination ShowThe School Of Influence Podcast Podcast Hosting ToolsCaptivate https://www.captivate.fmBuzzsprout https://nealschaffer.com/buzzsprout (affiliate)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

We all know how important personal branding is today. That’s why we need to invest more in it. Despite the need, have you already transformed your personal branding to fit the digital age of today? In fact, let's take this thought one step further: Have you digitally transformed yourself?In today’s episode, Khaled ElAhmad joins us to talk about how you can digitally transform your personal branding. Khaled is a “guide” based out of Jordan that helps business professionals with not just personal branding but also in Social Media Marketing in general.  He has worked with the Jordan government and Zain telecommunications network before opening his own consultancy on the same. Tune in to listen to the interview as he shares his journey, and how you can transform your own personal brand.Key Highlights[02:57] About Khaled ElAhmad[04:07] Where it all started with personal branding and digital marketing[07:28] Shifting from content creation to creating own content[07:54] The three types of content[09:22] Moving to Jordan and grabbing the opportunities.[13:11] Creating a digital first impression[17:05] Offering value after building digital first impression[21:03] Polishing your digital skills[25:15] Advice for people on their next personal branding journey[27:30] Building a digital community[29:27] Connect with KhaledNotable Quotes●      You don’t have to be an expert. You can be a guide and guide people to the right way when it comes to certain topics like digital media and personal branding.●      The first thing with the digital presence: my profile, username, cover photo, and bio are my digital first impression.●      All these little skills must be digitized. You must learn how to do that.●      I would advise everyone who’s into personal branding to reinvent themselves and reevaluate their digital presence because the algorithms are changing. Connect with KhaledInstagram https://www.instagram.com/shusmo/LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ShusmoFacebook https://www.facebook.com/ShusmoTwitter https://twitter.com/ShusmoLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Stop trying to do everything yourself when it comes to content creation. You can still be 100% authentic with your content while involving others in your production. Let me explain the why and how.It should go without saying that uou have a greater chance of succeeding faster with all aspects of your digital marketing, including content creation, when you involve a team. Working together builds success in its own unique way. The same concept applies in creating and leveraging content to build a successful business. In today’s episode, I share with you how you can take advantage of the opportunities available and maximize your ROI by having a team help you with your content creation efforts. Whether you’re seeking to create content for your websites, social media, or YouTube, this episode explores why having a team can really be crucial in maximizing your potential. Notable Quotes●      I believe that there’s not enough good content in the top search results. If you can create great content that represents the product or service you’re selling, I believe you can rank high.●      Content creation is all about teamwork. Nobody can do it all alone with expertise.●      Hire the team and get it done. If you really want to ramp up your content creation, this is going to be the shortcut. ●      The more you work with team members, the greater the quality will be and the quicker and more efficient you will be with turnaround.“You can go to as many conferences as you want. Listen to as many podcasts as you want. Read as many blog posts as you want. But if you don’t have the team,  IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.”Mentioned ResourcesSchool Of Influence Podcast Interview with Roger Wakefield: How To Build A YouTube Following For Your BusinessWebsites to hire freelancers for your teamWriter Access https://www.writeraccess.com/ Upwork https://www.upwork.com/ Fiverr https://nealschaffer.com/fiverrAudio  creation and Editing ToolsGarageband https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/ Audacity https://www.audacityteam.org/ Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ranking in google searches requires much effort and skills that can be time-consuming. From learning the Google algorithms, doing keyword research, working on links, and on-page optimization, you surely have a lot to do. But with the help of AI tools such as Frase, you can make your work faster, easier, and ultimately better.In this episode, Neal Schaffer speaks with Bill King, the Director of Marketing at Frase, an end-to-end SEO content creation that helps you “go from content ideas to SEO results faster and easier.” Bill has also worked with HubSpot as the Senior Inbound Marketing Consultant, and as the Acquisition Marketing Manager with Drift. Tune in and listen to Bill sharing about Frase and trends in content and SEO that you need to know in 2021.Notable Quotes●      The process of going from an idea to an article that gets traffic from google, the easiest thing you can do is keyword research.●      We’re not trying to just give you tools to do stuff faster, better, and cheaper. That’s already helpful. We’re saying how do you make sure that if you write this content, then it will be the best?●      Most of the value you’ll get in content and SEO will be on transferring clear expected outcomes of what you’re looking for and understanding what the recipe is to be successful in search.●      At the end of the day, we want people to go faster, better, and more efficiently.●      The only way to really quantify what great content means is to understand how you can actually wrap your head around what it actually means to be great content.●      One of the first things people think about when they hear the word automation or AI is they think that it’s gonna replace hard work and expertise. That’s clearly not the case.●      Google in the backend is trying to understand who are the credible sources for specific topics and which are the best.●      If you have the tools in place to know I’m speaking to this topic in a deep, authoritative way, you’re already setting yourself for success.Mentioned Resources and ToolsFraseHubSpotSEMRushYoast Episode 216: How To Use Influencers For Your BusinessLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

There are two main ways to grow your influence in social media: Organically through your own social media content or by spending money to advertise on the various social media sites. Influencer marketing, of course, can fall in both categories, depending on the collaboration.This episode will take a deep look at paid social media advertising on sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest and give you a solid framework for planning and measuring the increased influence you can obtain from Paid Social.Key Highlights[01:38] Ways to Expand Social Influence[03:03] Fundamental Things About Advertising on Social Media That We Tend to Forget[05:33] The Objectives[06:06] cost Per Click vs Cost Per Impression[09:20] Ad Set Level[11:34] Interest/Demographics[13:17] Funnel of Social Media Engagement[19:05] How Paid Social Media Works[19:42] The Creatives[24:00] Getting People Closer Down to the Funnel[25:56] Making Customer An AdvocateNotable QuotesWhen we think about influence, we ideally want to attain influence organically. You don't know how well you're gonna perform, unless you actually go through the practice of advertising on these different platforms.Once you figure out the social network, you now need to figure out which of those two objectives is going to work best for you. And depending on the campaign that's targeting, they're all going to work differently. So you're not going to be able to reach one general conclusion. But just remember that not everything is perfect. Your results are gonna vary. At the end of the day, unless you're experimenting, you're not maximizing your paid social influence on those platforms.Don't hit the boost button, we always want to do this within the app platform.The more data points you have here, the more you're going to be able to reach people poll that already have some sense of know, like and trust. And therefore the idea is that it's going to be a lot more effective retargeting is going to be a lot more effective than reaching out to people that don't know you. I think that's really the greatest way to look at what I'm talking about here, in terms of that brand awareness for social media is you're building an asset, you're building a pixel, you're building a way to retarget these people at a later date. Find that sweet spot in terms of social platform where that ad gets displayed the objective, targeting the creative once you get that sweet spot down, right revenue almost becomes predictable.Episodes MentionedEpisode 147Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Influencer marketing should be a natural extension of your own marketing, and perhaps there is no better place for it than in B2B companies.Listen in to my interview with The Influencer Marketer Tom Augenthaler as we discuss the nuts and bolts of influencer marketing and how to begin implementing it for your business today.Key Highlights[01:49] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Tom Augenthaler[03:47] Tom's Journey to Influencer Marketing[06:47] Little Case Study[09:19] How Have Things Changed Today[14:12] Tom's Advice on Approaching Influencers[15:45] Ways You Can Begin Collaboration with Influencers[21:02] The Education Curve[23:34] Must Have Tools[27:38] Final Thoughts[29:47] Connect with TomNotable QuotesIt's not really so much about social following, which can matter depending upon the the objective of the campaign, of course, but it's more about expertise and knowledge and street cred. So do the influencers have the chops? As I like to call it? Do they? Do they have that expertise and experience in a given niche where they can really help my client advance.The first thing I look for is, are they experts in their space? Do they really know what they're talking about? And you could tell based upon their track record, where they've worked, where they're working now, and the kind of content they produce.Just find the right people, you know, and you'll be, you'll be off to the races.It's very much about working with the influencer in a collaborative basis, so that everybody wins. Because if if it's done that way, then the content that gets created is generally better quality. And it really does resonate with the audience a lot better. So I don't take the approach of the brand telling the influencer what to do.It's about building a mosaic. So you build sort of a picture. It's not just about finding those specific people with in that specific niche, although that is the core of it. Right? You certainly begin there. And then you radiate out a little bit.Try to help the influencer as much as possible to but the content once it's created, as you know, it doesn't just sit there on its own. You got to do something with it. Right. Yeah. And that's, that's where a lot of the juices that.Really take a careful look at what objectives are you really trying to meet here. And the second thing is, is once you start to work with some of the influencers, think in terms of building relationships with those people, because they can be people that you work with for years.Tom Augenthaler LinksTom Augenthaler's Website: https://theinfluencemarketer.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The Age of Influence is on the horizon, and the entrepreneurial perspective starts to shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing. How do you apply a people-centric strategy to leverage the power of word of mouth at little to no cost? In this episode, I share my insights about employer branding, employee advocacy, personal branding, as well as digital and social media marketing in general.Employer Branding[02:43]Employer branding is a crucial concept to understand if you work in human resources or a corporate executive. It is about branding your company as a place where people would love to work. With the economy starting to open up, the labor market will be as intense as before the pandemic began. [04:56]You can say all the great things about your products and services, but when someone else has an opinion about you, as a company, that begins to have an impact. Companies like Google and Facebook already have tremendous brand equity where they don’t even need employer branding. [05:25]To implement employer branding, I suggest having your employees tell stories about working at your company. That’s why LinkedIn company pages have their employees talk about the company in their career section. However, the videos looked lifeless.[06:32]I advise to leverage influencer marketing to amplify your employer branding and social media. Social media was made for people, not for business. Therefore, you can infer from it that you need a people-centric approach to social media and marketing for people to relate to your brand.[07:52]It’s about how you can get positive word of mouth about your brand. Whether you hire people or build trust with your community, it all comes down to the people being able to talk about you. Listen more to this part as I share in-depth on how my real estate client manifested employer branding!Influencer Marketing[10:11]If you are a startup and nobody knows about you, it’s time for you to proactively collaborate and engage with influencers. I share how a member of my Digital First Group Coaching Membership Community sends bicycle parts to an influencer for them to try. Because the influencer was interested in the product, they showcased it to their audience. And then the product now gets into the limelight, without paying anything! That’s how far influencer marketing can take you if you provide value that people actually wanted.[12:25]When you find the right influencers for your product, it becomes a no-brainer for them to naturally take an interest in it because you did your research and your product provides value for the influencer and their audience. This is a mindset shift that allows you to see marketing from a people-centric perspective.Social Media Ads[13:41]I share how my chiropractor leveraged paid media through Facebook ads to target veterans telling them about a free chiropractic service. They could have used influencers, but they found out that it is easier to target a niche nobody else targets through Facebook ads. They try to make friends with these veterans through the free servLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Looking to make a splash in your industry? Virtual summits might just be the best way to do so toady. Perhaps you have registered for such a summit which had one or two dozen speakers, or maybe you have spoken at one.If you have done webinar marketing before, a virtual summit can help provide exponential value to attendees and benefits to your business.If you are intrigued by the potential or running a virtual summit or event for your business, this episode is for you. I interview one of the thought leaders in the space, Liam Austin, where we discussed:which virtual event is right for youhow to sell more of your signature offer from your eventhow to get recurring revenue on autopilotThis interview actually influenced me to begin preparing my own virtual summit which I hope to unveil in the near future! If you are interested in launching your own virtual summit, in addition to reaching out to Liam, make sure you check out HeySummit [affiliate]!Also, if you are a fan of the podcast and want to join my free monthly group coaching session, send your screenshot to neal@nealschaffer.com Thanks!Key Highlights[4:21] Introduction of guest speaker, Liam Austin[7:09] Evolution of Virtual Events[8:22] How Liam Austin Started Doing Virtual Events[9:03] Liam Austin's First Virtual Event[13:52] How to Find Influential Speakers for Virtual Events?[15:01] Ideal Opt-in Rate for Summit Events[18:03] Steps on Setting-Up Your First Virtual Event[21:22] How to Negotiate with Event Speakers[23:00] Determining Type and Size of Your Virtual Event[25:21] Repurposing Live Content[30:52] Ways on Generating Revenue from Virtual Event Content[33:55] Liam's Advice on How to Get Recurring Revenue from Doing Virtual Events[35:05] Importance of Turning Live Video Content into Evergreen Content[38:42] Why Considering Event Topics and Product Is Critical[40:56] All about Liam Austin's company and How He Helps People and Businesses[46:08] Liam's Advice to EverybodyNotable Quotes:Go out there and just test it, try it.  But word of warning. It's addictive. It's about providing value and helping people just realize like, yes, this is for me, yes, I need help on this. And I want you know, more of this.With the influx of virtual events, now we need to stand out, we need to do something different. We can't just be, you know, another cow in the field, we want to be that purple cow.Connect with Liam:EntrepreneursHQ: https://entrepreneurshq.com/Liam's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamaustin/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you're listening to this podcast, you're doing so in hopes of implementing my advice or that from my guests in your company or own business.As a content creator, the greatest respect you can pay me is in implementing what I teach.In launching my group coaching membership community Digital First, I realize that many people get stuck with their digital marketing and simply don't execute. You can listen to as many podcasts and read as many blog posts and watch as many YouTube videos as you like - the information you need is all there, but if you don't begin on the journey of execution you can't be on your way to business success. Yes, this is a topic you've probably heard before, but I wanted to send you all a reminder based on recent conversations and executions I have seen in my own community. You don't have to join my community to become successful at digital marketing, but if you don't have a network of "doers" to surround yourself with and be inspired by, go find one - TODAY! Key Highlights[2:20] Neal's Group Coaching, Digital FirstA community of mentors that provides education about Digital Marketing through training videos.[3:43] Importance of Taking Action[6:43] You Learn by Taking Action and Doing It[8:05] How Neal Launched His Podcast From ScratchNeal created a 26-minute video where he shared how he started his podcast from scratch. He aims to inspire beginners to do it and try something new. There is no excuse in starting and creating content whether it be a podcast, blog, YouTube, or an Instagram channel.[12:11] Leveraging Relationships, Internet, and Social Media When Creating a BusinessThere's so much information you can get from the internet, social media, and your network that can actually help you build your business from scratch[14:08] Leveraging Digital and Social Media in Various Ways[16:48] Skyrocket Your Business By Having The Right Tools and MindsetNotable QuotesI'm trying to motivate people to pursue whatever they want to do to help them utilize digital marketing as their engine of growth.If you've been thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop reading the blog post, do it.Doer's win. You're not going to succeed every time, especially in digital and social media marketing. But with every piece of content that you publish, with every product that you promote, you get closer to figuring out a lot of things because it's digital. We can get the data, and we can learn from the data. And we can continue to build and build and build assets through these experiences.With the Internet, and with digital and social media, anything is possible. You can create a business from scratch, and get it up there tomorrow. And there's just so much information out there.Today, there is a service for everything. There is help for everything you want to achieve. So if you don't have time to do it, there are others who can help you do it.Stop waiting, start implementing. Stop researching, start executing.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

You've probably heard the term "data-driven content strategy," but what does that mean exactly? And how can it be applied to our social media content?Enter James Creech, Co-Founder & CEO of Measure Studio, whose motto is "It's a pleasure to measure." In our interview we uncover a lot of great tips vis a vis how to properly measure social media content and what insights for our social media strategy we can find from doing so.Some of the things we talked about in this episode include:Finding an effective social content strategy is hard. It's a blend of art and science that requires constant experimentation and refinement. To do so effectively, you need strong tools at your disposal that go beyond the limited analytics available natively from social platforms.The first 24 - 72 hours are critical for assessing content performance. You want to establish a strong early trajectory for your content to rank highly in search and boost organic discovery.Benchmarking content performance allows you to understand what's working and what's not working, so you can focus on making incremental improvements over time. This is particularly valuable given how often social platforms' algorithms change.Key Highlights[1:15] Introduction of podcast guest, James Creech[3:50] How James Got Involved with Influencer Marketing[6:20] What James' Business OffersHow does Measure Studio differ from other content measurement tools?[9:22] Measure Studio's Price Point[15:30] How to Create Brand ImpactWhen creating a content strategy you need to think of the elements. Ask yourself,  who is your ideal customer? Where do you want to reach them?[19:31]Benchmark Number of Hours Per Platform[21:49] Important Metrics to Benchmark[25:25] Where Measure Studio Focuses On[29:56] James' Role in Biden Harrison Campaign[31:57] James' Final Advice to the Listeners[32:21] Ways to Be More Effective With Your Social Media ContentNotable Quotes:Influencers are people, as much as they have distribution. They are also creative that storytellers have this really meaningful connection with their fans. And the only way to truly do that effectively is to organically get a tap into that authenticity in that audience.We want creatives to be able to express themselves. We want brand marketers to be able to communicate the awesome things that they're doing and what their product stands for. But in order to do that, you have to understand how it lands with your audience who enable the best forms of creativity.It doesn't mean you need to be on every social platform, you need to pick and choose which are the most important, then from there, understand the native content experience, the audience,  an experience that is unique to each platform.James Creech LinksMeasure Studio: https://measure.studioLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I don't pretend to be a YouTube expert by any means, but if you are new to the platform like I am, how successful you can be there is all about the details.Strategically creating, editing, and uploading my first YouTube video ever made me feel like I "finally" started taking podcasting seriously back in 2019, 6 years after my launch!Similarly, I have had a YouTube channel for some time, but it is only very recently where I have decided to be a little more strategic and intentional about the videos I post.I am still very early in my journey, but these are the 13 actionable tips for YouTube that I wish someone had taught me, and they are tips that I don't see in the blogosphere.Hope you'll join my on my YouTube journey here:  https://youtube.com/nealschafferKey Highlights[3:17] How to Strategically Approach YouTube[7:33] First Tip to Maximize YouTube Influencer[9:03] Second Tip: Finding Role ModelsThe importance of finding role models in your niche.[11:13] Third Actionable Tip in Approaching YouTubeThe ideal length of YouTube video to post.[14:26] How Do I Make People Stay Long In My YouTube Videos?[16:40] What Type of Video Content Should I Create?Finding a format that fits your niche and product.[18:42] Doing A Keyword Strategy[21:04] Tip #7: Create An Enticing Title[22:13] Why I Like Putting Teaser at the Beginning of My VideoPlace a short 10-15 seconds teaser to let the viewers know what they're going to get out of the video and entice them to stay to the end.[24:08] Introducing Elements In Your YouTube Video[26:55] Tip #11: Have A Professionally Designed Thumbnails[29:30] Leverage Video Descriptions[31:17] Cards and End Screens[32:27] SummaryNotable Quotes:When I talk about YouTube video, I'm talking about this form of content that allows you to build a platform, it allows you to build a platform because number one, the content gets indexed by search engine. And number two, therefore it has a long shelf life. If you want to do better at YouTube, you got to consume more YouTube.Find accounts in your niche that are already doing this, that you can not emulate but be inspired. Because you need to do it in your own way to be successful, you can't just copy and be successful.So whatever format fits your niche fits your product fits your branding, find a format.Let them know what they're going to get out of it. Entice them to stay to the end. And then go through the motions of creating the video and really delivering on that promise.What you can do is you can have a great title, which is also going to be depicted in your thumbnail, which hopefully will entice people to click through, and the title is going to be aligned and includes your keyword.You don't have to go too far to be successful on YouTube, it helps without a doubt but I don't want that to stop you. You don't need any more excuses not to do this.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Look at your social media analytics, and you will probably notice that those posts that were or included a video component probably performed the best. This should be no surprise as video is perhaps the most powerful form of content that helps to create trust and connections unlike any other content medium.There is no better person to guide us on how to leverage videos in our social media TODAY than Kate Skavish, co-founder of the video marketing platform Wave.video. Listen in as Kate teaches us how to be relevant by including videos in our marketing content mix and helping us stand out by providing tips on how to make better videos consistently.Key Highlights[1:12] The Power of Video[3:36] Introduction of the guest, Kate Skavish[5:01] How Kate Started with Video Marketing[6:43] Leveraging Video Content to Create Trust and Connection to Your AudienceIn what way video can help create trust and communicate feelings to your audience?[11:11] The First Step to Including Video In Your Marketing StrategyThe different approaches on how you can create videos and use them as part of your content strategy.[14:52] SEO Driven Approach For Videos[22:41] Wave.video New Features[27:54] How Can I Make Better Videos Consistently[30:15] The Best Way To Get Your Audience Hooked In Your Videos[33:57] Best Practices for YouTube VideosKate shared some advice and best practices to apply when doing YouTube videos.[38:19] The Future for Wave.video[40:00] Connect with Kate SkavishNotable QuotesVideo conveys so much more than just what you say. With video, you are able to communicate your passion, your feelings, and that what tended to create this connection between people, which also creates trust.Well, my advice is to start explaining and think about strategy. First, what you want to convey and how you will do it over time, you're not going to end up doing something once and then forgetting about it. Because that doesn't bring results.Research your keywords, create content, see what actually trends on YouTube because training is something that where you can utilize your efforts on and then probably see, if you already have written articles, just repurpose them in the form of videoYou have to streamline your video creation process. And that makes it easier for you to produce it on a regular basis.Whatever your goal is, for this particular video, you need to tell your viewers directly what you want.Under commit and over deliver.Kate Skavish LinksWebsite: https://wave.video Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Instead of always trying to figure out what to write your next blog post on or wonder why you aren't ranking for strategic keywords, take my advice and learn how to plan out and build one year's worth of blog content which will become your strategic library of content. This content will not only help you rank higher for SEO but also give you a social "voice" and allow you to engage with both prospects and clients in social media as well as your email subscribers. I will show you the exact steps I have taken to outrank formidable competitors in building my own Library of Content in this episode.Key Highlights:[02:07] Library of contentHow can I strategically create a library of content in one year?[7:22] How Am I Going to Get Discovered on Google?[09:46] Targeting Relevant KeywordsThe library of content starts with understanding what are the relevant keywords to target[12:24] Importance of Curating the Right Keywords[13:33] Creating a Content Schedule[15:12] What is Search Intent?[17:19] Planning Out Library Content in Terms of KeywordsI have planned out my library content, now, how do I implement it?[18:01] Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Rank[22:08] Calculate Your Content MarketingHow do I calculate my ROI? How do I track my social engagement of the blog posts I published?[23:07] Search Visibility[25:42] E.A.T MethodologyHow does EAT Methodology help get you a higher ranking on search engines?Notable Quotes:If you have the best product in the market, if you have the smartest service, the least expensive, sir, I don't care what it is, you're out there you have a business because you provide something valuable if there are keywords related to your business that you need to be found for you should be found for. And if you don't attack this strategically, you're never going to be found for it, or you're going to be paying a lot for advertising in order to be found for it. It takes time to build authority.Not every keyword is relevant.Think of it this way, you only need to curate those keywords that will lead potential customers to you.It's really all about serving search engines what they want to see if this is what they think values the reader, they'll want to serve the same thing that you have, you do not want to republish though, it's got to be original content.When you build authority in one subject, it does raise all of your boats in other subjects. Related Tools:SEMrush: https://nealschaffer.com/semrushFrase: https://nealschaffer.com/fraseLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

For B2B brands, your internal influencers are often your salespeople. They are facing your customer and often are the most active on social media because they can monetize their influence in the form of additional commissions.That's why every employee influencer / advocacy program for B2B brands becomes successful when there is alignment between sales and marketing.If this is a need your company has, you are in for a special treat. B2B marketing thought leader and best-selling author Pam Didner joins us today to give us some creative ways to set up your B2B sales team for success, including:Identify how you can help sales via different sales stagesMap marketing content to a sales cycleUnderstand the collaboration process between sales and marketingKey Highlights[01:02] Introduction of podcast guest, Pam Didner[04:44] Pam Didner's Book[4:57] What is Sales Enablement?[7:08] Different Sales Stages[10:30] Best Content Strategy Practice[13:07] The Importance of Building Relationship With Your Sales People[16:03] Ways to Collaborate and Work With Sales Team[19:04] The Critical Role of Quality Data[21:08] Leveraging Tools and Processes In Sales and Marketing Alignment[26:08] The Role of AIs[30:16] Basic Questions You Should Ask Your Vendor[31:06] Connect with Pam[31:39] Final ConclusionNotable Quotes:In addition, to build brain awareness and drive demands, a portion of our job is also supporting sales. And the one major functions of doing that is to provide content that salespeople can use. So not just educating themselves, they can also use it to share with your clients or the prospect.Salespeople are very relationship-driven. And that's how to they build their accounts, or do the customer is a lot to do with relationship. It's still very much a relationship-based type of approach when you want to close any kind of sales.Find a way to provide value and then build that relationship over a period of time. What I have come to realize is that supporting sales is very similar to why salespeople try to build a relationship with the prospects and the potential customers, you need to take a similar approach to build that relationship with your salespeople.In every single marketing element that you have in your sleeves, if you apply on the sales side and be very targeted and accounts specific, it's basically sales enablement to some extent.Technology often gets over and the process gets overlooked. And the technology does not create the process, you need to have the process. And then find the technology that helps enable it right.Pam Didner LinksWebsite:  https://pamdidner.com/B2B Marketing and More with Pam Didner Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b2b-marketing-and-more-with-pam-didner/id1250138104Effective Sales Enablement: https://amzn.to/2PuHR10 (affiliate)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you want your organization to yield more influence in social media, or if you are looking for your employees to become more active in social media to raise your company's digital profile, this episode is for you.Listen to all of my advice that you as a leader can do to push the ball forward on leveraging influence that can impact your entire organization.Key Highlights[03:31] Why and How Every Business Should Become More Influential[04:24] Become The InfluencerYou, as the leader of the company or brand, should be the influencer. Leverage your title and be more active in social media because you are indirectly representing your company or employee.[06:22] Setting Yourself As A Role Model To Your Employees[08:12] Leverage Others ContentUse your employee's success stories and use their content as part of your social media profile and make them a hero.[10:37] The Importance of Having an Internal Training System[11:42] Invest and Empower Your EmployeesIf you want your employees to do better and shine in social media, empower and invest in them.[11:52] Ways You Can Empower Your Employees[14:52] Investing in Tools, Technology and Other ProgramsFind some tools or technology that can help your employees work and perform better on social media. You can also enroll them in some programs or additional training.[17:21] SummaryNotable QuotesThe first one as I hinted that every brand should try to become more influential is to become the influencer.Use your social media presence, don't rely on others, to become influencers for your company, don't rely on all your employee influences you should become one of them.If you really want to become that role model, carve the path for others to follow.Make your employees the heroes of your stories.If we can leverage other people's content, it allows us to be able to engage through content, and engage with people that engage with our content, it actually gives us more time to engage with people.Considering investing in tools and technology to complement what your company already has to help your employees perform better on social media.It's all about empowering them and taking it one step further.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you want to learn how to apply the concepts of SEO to social media, you are in for a treat. Today's guest is one of the most recognized SEO experts, Stephan Spencer who is co-author of The Art of SEO, co-author of Social eCommerce, and author of Google Power Search, all published by O’Reilly.In this episode we talk about something that you might not have considered before: The SEO value of your social media. Specifically we discussed:SEO applied to your YouTube channel and videosGetting SEO value from social media postsContent marketing strategies: coming up with hooks, getting links not just social shares, etc.This is a longer than average episode as I got a TON of value from this interview - I am confident that you will as well!Key Highlights[2:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Stephan Spencer[4:43] Who is Stephan?[8:03] The Value You Can Get from SEO[11:09] Stephan's Advice on Getting Started at YouTube for SEO[16:13] The Best Tactic in Embedding YouTube Videos in Your Blog[18:44] Ninja Technique[22:58] SEO Advice to Apply to Your YouTube Channel and Videos[25:19] Should I Use Tags on YouTube?[28:44] Keyword Research for YouTube[34:35] Stephan's Advice on Getting SEO Punch from Social Media[39:23] Content Diamond[43:05] Should I Create Content from My Podcast Episode?[46:04] Stephan's Advice to Content Creators[52:28] Importance of Scaling Yout Content Team[53:19] Connect with StephanNotable QuotesIt's very important that your videos on YouTube start out strong and a lot of the YouTubers teach this.The first thing that people look at, and that kind of the big decision point for them is what the thumbnail looks like, and not the title of the video.Don't go with your gut, always do the research and see if your gut is right or not, that's the right way to do it. And having some tools that give you YouTube-specific data is just invaluable.Everything that you create should have a hook to it.  Having that hook is invaluable.Look what other people are doing. And like I said, you're not emulating them it's purely for inspiration but the magic is in making it your own and owning it and applying it to your brand your content so that it works.If you're still doing all those small things, you're not going to scale. So you need to scale your brand, you need to scale your content team. And now's a great time to do it.Stephan Spencer LinksWebsite:  https://www.stephanspencer.com/Marketing Speak Podcast: https://www.marketingspeak.com/podcasts/The Art of SEO: https://amzn.to/3ealztR (affiliate)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

"It's all about your funnel." "You gotta have a funnel in place." "This tool will help serve all of your funnels." A lot of people say a lot of different things about funnels, so let's take a step back and look at what exactly marketing funnels and why they are fundamental to your business.More importantly, learn why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the subject and how you need to be creative in designing funnels that truly serve and deepen relationships with both your prospective and present customers.Key Highlights[03:07] What Are Funnels?[04:40] How Do Funnels Works?[06:55] The Process of Looking at Funnels[09:41] Other Definitions of FunnelsAside from the traditional definition of funnels, what are the other definitions that apply to funnels?[12:15] Why Retargeting Is Effective?[13:09] How to Build Relationship With PeopleBuilding relationships with people and your target audience is critical if you are trying to offer products and services to them. How do I do that?[14:44] Converting General Public to Your CustomersHow can I convert a general person into my customers? What are the ways I can convince him/her to buy my product?[15:43] The Advocate Stage[17:40] Ways of Building Funnels[20:26] SummaryNotable Quotes You want all of your targeted, relevant potential customers, to find you to follow you. And the way that happens digitally, today is that there are only two different ways that happen, they're either gonna find you through a search engine, normally Google, or they're gonna find you on social media.We need to build a relationship with them, we need to build like no interest.It really comes down to your products and services. What value are you going to add? where and who? and constructing everything you do with your marketing? That's the top of the funnel, traditionally speaking, then we want to get people that are interested in doing business with us. And then there has to be this desire, that there's an interest, but is theirs are they actually going to buy from us?Whatever product or service you have, you really want to think this through. What are the different touchpoints? What are the different ways, especially with paid media?What are the different ways in which we can retarget people that have a brand affinity for us, that's really the way we want to think about it?Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Serial author and content marketing expert Christoph Trappe joins me for this episode dedicated to livestreaming and why it matters. We all know that video is the most powerful to express our brands or our ourselves, but why aren't we doing more of it?Christoph will help you better understand and utilize livestreaming with his advice on:The evolution of livestreaming as a differentiatorHow to integrate livestreaming into your strategyTools and tricks of the tradeKey Highlights[01:21] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Christoph Trappe[03:13] Christoph's Journey of Content Marketing and Storytelling[05:50] Why Do I Need to Always Tell A Story?[08:20] Rules on Paragraphs[10:02] Tools for Content Writing[14:34] Why Livestreaming Is A Strong Strategic Differentiator in Content Marketing[21:56] Integrating Live Streams into Marketing Strategy[23:47] Content Repurposing[24:26] Christoph's Recommendations on Content Repurposing[26:51] NPR Approach[27:48] Tools and Tricks You Can Use for Live Streaming[33:32] Christoph's Book[36:50] Connect with ChristophNotable QuotesAlways try to tell stories. It's the stories that people remember.Integrated into everything else you're doing, find a way to maximize what you're doing on the live stream, use it on other places, whether it's an article, whether it's social, whether it's different things, and then kind of see what takes off, you know, maybe it's the light, maybe you need to focus more time on the live stream and less time on blogging.Be very strategic over what you want to update what you want to produce after the fact.There's always a way to repurpose, and sometimes it's as simple as taking the new podcast or the new live stream, and embedding it into an old article, In the end, you're done.So my biggest advice is, stop the excuses that you don't have the right equipment. There are 47 dominoes that have to fall. Something doesn't work on a live stream. Don't sweat it, you know, just do what you can. And if it doesn't work, try it again later, or just do a podcast, you know, and use the podcast.Christoph Trappe LinksGoing live: Livestream your podcast to reach more people Book: https://amzn.to/3cMccBj (affiliate)Website:  https://authenticstorytelling.net/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Instead of always trying to tap into the influence of others, why isn't your brand trying to take a strategic approach to increase your own digital influence? The benefits of doing so are plentiful, and influencers have already perfected the formula of what you need to do.So what are you waiting for? Listen to this episode and build your own influence as a company or brand!Key Highlights[03:15] Employee Advocacy[03:56] How Can I Make My Business More Influential?[04:26] Building Influence[06:36] Other Approaches Where You Can Yield Influence[09:30] Things People Look At When Collaborating[10:43] Why Building A Large Following Is Better Than Small Following?[11:28] The Funnel of Social Media Relationships[14:36] How You Can Build Better Influence Than Your Competitor[15:27] Leveraging Social Platforms[16:49] Micro-targeting Options[17:44] The Things You Should Be Looking At When Setting Up Social Media Dashboards[19:25] Why Do You Need To Delineate Marketing From Your Social Media?[19:59] Things You Can Do To Get Influencers Work With YouNotable QuotesBuilding more influence, a lot of it is tapping into other influencers and influencer marketing.If your business wants to become more influential, you need to build your influence on it.It is recommended that you build a larger rather than smaller following.So look around in your industry and look at your competitors, look at their follower count, see where you rank, and consider a paid campaign to get you to rank a little bit better. What I am talking about is leveraging the micro-targeting capabilities of these paid social platforms to handpick those ideal people that you think if they were exposed to you, they would not only be interested in following you, but they would also be interested in becoming your customer.You got to be like an influence, you got to be tapped in your community, you got to be publishing content there that is truly resourceful, relevant, and you have to be proactively engaging with othersSocial media is less about your promotion, and more about developing relationships, developing relationships with influencers, among others. And when you begin to look at your social channels, not as promotion channels, but as channels that truly provide that valuable resourceful content, curating content from others, photos, videos, you know, interactive, engaging content, live streaming, this is the content that people want on social media. But if you take this approach to use social media as an influencer would, and you take a similar approach, which is we want to build our influence in social media, it's going to make all this other stuff a lot easier to do. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Why are some entrepreneurs successful while many others fail?Since creating one of the most popular business podcasts of all time, Entrepreneurs on Fire, John Lee Dumas has interviewed more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and taken the time to decipher what has made them successful, culminating in the publication of his first book "The Common Path to Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment".John shares some of his findings with us and teaches us the steps we need to take to find whatever uncommon success we are looking for.Key Highlights[01:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, John Lee Dumas[05:47] What is Entrepreneur on Fire?[08:17] Why Some Entrepreneurs Succeed And Some Fail[11:50] The Importance of Niching Down[14:15] The Next Steps To Being A Successful Entrepreneur[16:16] 17 Chronological Steps Roadmap to Financial Payments[19:14] John's Favorite Step to Financial Payments[22:05] The End Goal[27:16] What Is The Common Path?[29:25] How John Lee Came About Writing His Book[35:59] Connect With John LeeNotable QuotesOne thing they've all had in common is they have been able to provide the best solution to a real problem that exists in this world, all the entrepreneurs that I've seen, fail struggle never quite have it click or the number two solution to a real problem, or the number 10 solution to a real problem, or the number one solution to not that big of a deal of a problem. And that's why they're failing. And so if you are not willing to identify a big idea that you can have in this world, and then take the next step, which is the critical step, which is to discover the niche, uncover the void to find the problem that's not being solved within that big idea, or this being solved very poorly that you can immediately solve better and become the best solution to that problem. You are going to struggle.Look around. And often you'll get inspired by things around you and new ideas. And some of those ideas may help your current business, some of them may propel a new business.You have to know who your perfect customer is. Your perfect avatar is from day one, even pre-launch.At the core of who we are as human beings, we truly want three things. We want to be able to wake up every morning and do what we want to do when we want to do it with whom we want to do it. If you are honestly waking up in the morning, and you're able to say I'm doing what I want to do today, where I want to do it, with whom I want to do it with what else what else is there? I mean, that is what you want to be doing where you want to be doing with whom you want to be doing it with like that is massive success. That is freedom.And that's when I realized that building the career was not the end goal here, right? It was happiness with the people I loved. But it was also being able to make the choice to spend time watching my kids grow up. And that is what has fueled me.John Lee Dumas LinksBook: https://uncommonsuccessbook.com/Entrepreneurs on Fire: http://Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Jason Falls is one of those guys in digital marketing I have had a ton of respect for many years. Imagine how surprised he was - and then how I was - that we both found out we were writing books on influencer marketing at the same time!I beat Jason to the punch, but for anyone who read The Age of Influence, Jason's new book, Winfluence, is a must-read. We discuss the background for his book as well as Jason's uniquely holistic perspective on the value of influencer marketing.Key Highlights[01:39] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jason Falls[05:55] Who is Jason and What He Does?[08:43] How Jason Introduce Influencer Marketing to His Clients[12:21] The Story Behind "Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand"[15:02] What Jason's Book Covers?[20:46] How Does Jason Measure Success Of The Metrics?[22:07] The Process of Content Creation[24:17] Jason's Recommendation on Creating Influencer Marketing Campaigns[26:32] Why Finding the Right Influencer Matters[31:52] You Need to Get Different Perspectives In Whatever You Do![33:53] Connect with Jason Falls[26:39] Jason's Last AdviceNotable QuotesIf you want to use influence marketing, rather than influencer marketing, just a subtle change in how you say things, what you're doing is you're ultimately saying, Okay, what is the audience we're trying to reach and what do we know about them? It all goes back to what's your goal? What are you trying to accomplish and once you know that, Who's your audience? What do you want them to do? When you identify the audience really well, then you're able to ask the question, okay, who or what influences them? How do they make buying decisions? How do they make decisions on changing their mind on certain issues? Is it they have conversations with family and friends, which it probably is that to a degree but do they also go online to look for information about the products or services that we sell and so it's really kind of identifying Okay, Who or what channels do they look to, for that type of information? So anybody can do this if you identify the right person who impacts the audience you're trying to persuade? And if you find that one influencer and you just reach out and start a relationship, and make friends with them, and say, Okay, what value can I provide to them, so that I might get value back from them and their audience in return?The more you invest in the relationship, obviously, the higher the return.This is not complicated. And people who have influence are probably thirsty to work with you. It's just finding the right one to approach to say, hey, what can we do together?Reference Links for Jason Falls:Winfluence on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qGKskW  [affiliate]Winfluence Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winfluence-the-influence-marketing-podcast/id1469090224Jason Falls Website: https://jasonfalls.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Whether you are a brand or a person, the ultimate sign that you have influence is when people are singing your praises when you are not in the room, whether online in social media or offline. What if you can bring all of your fans together in an environment so that they can talk about you while also getting direct access to you or your brand?This is what brands are doing by investing in Facebook Groups for their customers, and in doing so, they are investing in a community that can scale their influence.Many digital entrepreneurs are doing the same for their customers of their digital programs.I have decided that the next step to scale my own influence is in the creation of such a community. Listen in for my thoughts and plans for my new Group Coaching Membership Community, Digital First - and learn how you can become one of my founding members!Key Highlights[02:59] My Journey to Scaling Through Community[03:59] The Story Behind My First and Second Book[06:08] How Being A Consumer Yourself Helps You Understand Your Purpose[08:52] How Content Creators Build Their Influence?[10:02] How Does Community Help You Scale?[11:53] The Story Of How I Developed My First B2C Product[13:08] What Communities Can Do[14:36] Digital Economy[16:35] My First Digital Membership Community[18:17] How Will My Membership Community Provide Value to the Members?[19:31] What The Community Will Be[20:24] How to Join the CommunityNotable QuotesAny type of content creation online, on an edge over time, builds influence. But somewhere along the line, you don't build influence over anyone and everyone you build influence over a specific community.For one to excel at social media marketing, one needs to be an active consumer of social media first.What I've realized over the years is that those content creators that do have their own courses, actually build influence for the fact that they have a course.And that's how the community helps you scale, you have a lot of newbies coming in, they don't know if they should buy the tool or not. Or maybe they're on the free trial, they join the community, they see everybody else talking about what they do with the tool, how great it is. And they end up buying it right.That's exactly what I see communities can do, they can make it bigger than you. Because everybody talks about you.There's an economy of people that consume digital products out there that I was not part of that I did not know anything about. yet. It was huge, right? And that's what fuels all these new programs that we see out there, these new courses. And that's why there are people generating seven figures from this, right?The whole idea was that big enterprises have these centers of excellence that they can tap into for guidance on anything social media, or anything digital marketing.So read on blog posts, take all the courses book come to the community to get that applied answer to what you are looking for, to drive your business forward, get to the next stage, grow your business through innovative marketing. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How does one go about building influence in a crowded market?I often go back to my own background in B2B sales and look at habits, partnerships, and focus.That's why it was so refreshing to be joined by a special guest who serves the market that I used to work on who has very similar advice.Today I am joined today with the co-founder of the simple yet powerful CRM for small businesses selling B2B, Jeroen Corthout of Salesflare.In this interview we discuss:Focus on habits rather than goals: consistently deliver value in focus areas, rather than focusing everything on goal metricsExpand outside your own influence by leveraging the influence of others: partner up in every possible way with people who reach the same audienceReal expertise is hard to find and extremely valuable, so focus on attaining the highest possible quality (e.g. don't have copywriters write your content; pick your expertise niche; etc.)Key Highlights[01:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jeroen Corthout[03:15] Who is Jeroen and what is SalesFlare?[04:55] SalesFlare in Concept of Growing Influence[08:30] How SalesFlare Put Out Content[12:02] Tips in Ensuring Content Quality[16:07] Repurposing Content[17:34] The Approach on Hiring Experts[21:33] What Kind of Experts or Influencers Should I Interview?[22:53] The Process of Finding Podcasts[28:27] Jeroen's Webinar Strategy[31:19] Defining KPIs[33:47] What Am I Missing Out By Not Using CRM Tool Like SalesFlare?[38:55] Connect with Jeroen Corthout and SalesFlare[40:05] Summary and Introduction to Future Podcast Guests & TopicsNotable QuotesThe way we go about this is first of all when we put out content of all types on our own channels, we focus very much on quality. And we focus very much on imagining whether if you see our posts in Google, why would you see our posts in Google, and what's the first thing you're gonna want to read and then build from there? Keep delivering value consistently to people and keep building an audience outside of the people we already know.So it these posts, it's not because you once published them that they're not valuable anymore, you can repost them, update them, bring them to people again, and make make sure that they deliver that value again.It actually works much better if you focus on delivering that value and, and don't start selling too much. It's just a matter of always keeping that that habit like we call it or that cadence like you call it, you will get to whatever it is you want to achieve.We used to be very focused on reaching certain numeric goals. But then we started figuring that what helped us most if we would put consistent effort behind things, and this is not just when it comes to influencer marketing is all across the company. It's also the way we build the product. Reference Links for Jeroen Corthout:Jeroen's Company Salesflare: https://salesflare.com/Jeroen on LinkedIn: httpLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

New to Clubhouse? Trying to figure out how to get started and exactly what to do now that you have received that invite and joined the newest rage in social media?Continuing on from my introduction to Clubhouse on episode 196, this episode will provide you with detailed hand-holding to help you navigate around the app and create a focused strategy that will help you Maximize Your Social Influence, even on Clubhouse.If you're looking for an invite to the app, make sure you sign up to receive marketing communications from me on my website https://nealschaffer.com to get a chance to be invited when I get new invites to share!Key Highlights[00:40] Introduction[03:46] The Basics of Clubhouse[04:35] Clubhouse Number of Users[07:05] How Can I Download and Get Into Clubhouse?Where can I download the app and how can I create a profile to get into it?[09:53] How Clubhouse Works[11:02] Who Should I Follow on Clubhouse?Is Clubhouse the same as other social media networks where I should just follow random people?[12:28] The Notion of Follower-Following Ratio[13:52] Other Aspects of Clubhouse[15:21] What is a Club?[15:55] How to Find People and Clubs in My Niche[17:43] Accessing Your Clubhouse ProfileLearning more about the app's user interface.[19:00] How to Go into Settings[19:49] What is Clubhouse Frequency?[20:40] Trending Rooms[22:04] Cool Things About Clubhouse[22:58] What is the "Upcoming For You" Feature?[24:13] The Activity Feature[25:20] How to Add People to Rooms and Ping Them[26:03] How Can I Start My Own Room?[27:17] The Viral Nature of Clubhouse[34:51] SummaryNotable QuotesSo I recommend that you start small and here's the thing, like any other network, the earlier you get on and the more active you are, the more followers you will organically get over time.Keep your followers small. And remember, follow those that you either know, or that you want to learn from.You'll probably want to start following people and clubs based on your professional objective.You'll want to make sure that everything you want people to find out about you and all those keywords that you want to be found for obviously are in your profile.I would tend to want to invite more influential people than less influential people and people that would really appreciate it.I found clubhouse is a great way to get back in touch with old friends that we haven't talked to especially because of Coronavirus.The more active you are, the more followers, the more people that join your rooms, the more that this just gets spread.So we're always in the give first mode. And when we give information, naturally, it's going to attract customers.I highly recommend once you get your confidence to raise your hand and be as active as possible.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Have you ever wondered about how you can build influence by writing a book? Have you ever thought about writing a book but the process seems to be overwhelming and you simply don't have enough time in the day?This episode is for you!I am joined today by best-selling author of The 100-Page Book, Mike Capuzzi, a prolific author who also helps business owners and entrepreneurs write and market their books.In this interview we discuss:The power of helping before selling and why books enable you to market and sell at a more sophisticated level.The unique advantages of short, helpful books (shooks) and why often a short book is a smarter strategy than a traditional book.The essential ingredients to authoring an effective shook.Key Highlights[03:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mike Capuzzi[07:25] How Mike's Journey to Using Books to Increase His Influence Started[12:03] Concept of Using Books in Increasing InfluenceWhat is the idea of using books to increase my influence? How can books give me authority in the industry that I work in?[13:33] What is a Book Centric Marketing Strategy[14:53] Direct Response Book[15:23] Is It Better to Have a Physical Book?[17:06] Stories of Success[25:51] Unique Advantages of Writing Short, But Helpful BooksWhy writing shorter but helpful books is better than longer ones?[29:06] The Essential Ingredients to Authorize an Effective, Smart, and Helpful Book[32:27] Connect with Mike[34:20] SummaryNotable QuotesThe power of being able to offer a book, a free book, specifically, is a strategy that is, you know, time testedYou promote the book as the solution to finding out more about how to solve that problem or to gain that advantage. I always share that example sort of as an example of that local influence by tapping into other people's customers and rings of influence. The book almost becomes part of this campaign, once it's published. It's something you can talk about, on your social channels, it's content, you can repurpose for your blog, it gives you an excuse to reach out to people.And this is really a mistake a lot of authors make, they write a great book, they help the reader, but they don't give the reader what I call the next step. If someone is really into what you're sharing, they're naturally probably going to want more information from you, then they're going to want to know what the next step is. So it's really it's about speed, design, focus, and really taking the reader to what I call the next step. Just the process of writing a book allows you to sort of database and catalog your experiences and your expertise to put a framework behind it.Reference Links for Mike Capuzzi:Mike's Website: https://mikecapuzzi.com/The 100-Page Book: https://amzn.to/3qWCOU9 [affiliate]Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Have you heard of the latest rage in social media Clubhouse? Have you received an invite on your smartphone and unsure as to whether or not you should join? Are you on Clubhouse and still trying to figure out how to glean value from it? Let me share with you my own experiences with Clubhouse, describe its functionality in further details, and provide you with my advice on how to best maximize your social influence on Clubhouse.Episodes Mentioned:110: How to Generate Leads from Facebook with TabSite [Mike Gingerich Interview]81: Ello? What's all this talk about ELLO?48: How to Maximize Your Facebook Marketing [Interview with Mike Gingerich from TabSite]Key Highlights[01:30] How I Got Into Clubhouse [03:51] Clubhouse in the Analogy of Google Plus[06:35] How Can I Keep My Clubhouse Connection Back to My Network[08:26] How Invites Work[08:55] The Utilitarian Use of Social Media Network[11:42] Creating Room in Clubhouse[12:43] The Viral and Discoverability Aspect of Clubhouse[13:03] What is a Club?[14:20] Why People Like Clubhouse[16:11] How and Who to Follow On Clubhouse?[17:03] Radio Approach[18:08] The Cor of Clubhouse[19:53] What Happens When I Join A Room[21:25] The Approach to Clubhouse from A Marketing Perspective[22:06] How to Generate Income from Social Media NetworkNotable QuotesSo if you're a new social media player, you need to do things a little bit differently.When deciding whether to join a social network doesn't have enough momentum that it's going to be sticking around. The second point is well, what is the utilitarian use for the social network.Start to use it personally before you think about the marketing aspects of it. nd I think once you begin to look at it personally, you will discover the aspects that can help you maximize your social influence.This platform definitely allows you to be discovered. People can do searches for people. And you can do searches for groups, or I should say clubs.I recommend you join the clubhouse is that you begin as a way to tap into other people's thoughts and ideas.I highly recommend you don't do that. only follow the people that you know that you really want to listen to.Try to find people and follow people that add value. Try to follow clubs that you think might add value.  But if you take the approach that this is my personal ROI, of learning on a specific subject and or tapping, being able to listen in an intimate setting, and perhaps ask questions in an intimate setting of experts that I would love to tap into.I believe the more people that follow you, like any other social network, the more people that follow you, and the more of these groups that you join and raise your hand on, the greater the ability for you to build out a little bit of influence in the network to build out a little bit of branding a name for yourself.There are ways of generating income, but it has to come from adding value. And it has to come from building and developing relationships, just like with any other social meLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This week I am the one being interviewed, and by no other than real estate visionary and CEO of the leading real estate network BerkshireHathaway Home Services, Chris Stuart. I have had a chance to work together with Chris and his company, and I have found that the real estate industry is especially ripe for innovation regarding their marketing communication. Keep your eye on BerkshireHathaway Home Services as they represent what the future holds for the industry!Even if you are not involved in real estate, I highly recommend you listen to this episode as it gives you my best practices in using social media as part of your personal or business brand whether you are in sales, marketing, a business owner or an entrepreneur. I believe that real estate agents and brokers make up the largest number of salespeople in the United States, and considering that each one also is their own business owner, they need to be savvy at both sales and marketing. They also cannot meet their customers physically, so there is also a need for them, like yourself, to better digitally engage with their current customer base and prospective clients.I'm confident by the end of the episode you will have found a few new ways to Maximize Your Social Influence regardless of industry.Key Highlights[05:57] Internet and Social Media's Roles on the Opportunity of Being Influential[11:26] Bedrock Elements of Social Media and Influence[15:35] The Concept of Marketing of Targeting Personas[17:43] Content As The Currency of Social and Digital Media[18:23] What is the Best Format of Content for Starters?[22:50] Funnel of Relationships[25:26] Best Practices on Collaboration[29:33] Being Known Vs Being Influential[32:02] The Line Between Yielding Influence and Manipulating[34:45] Companies That Have Done a Great Job if Influencing or Being Influential[39:34] Social Media Is Made for People[41:45] The Journey of Establishing Trust and Influence[44:19] Critical Areas of Focus on Establishing Influence Offline[47:12] My Final AdviceNotable QuotesSo if you want to yield more influence on a certain topic, you need to talk about that topic. I think also knowing the end game, what are you trying to achieve with your influence.The whole idea is that every single unique engagement is a unique opportunity to deepen that relationship and drive people even further down.You need to have a digital gateway for your company and that is through the website.I think being known is sort of the first step in becoming because of influence. Yes, they know you but there's also a sense of trust. They also sense some credibility.It's not just having content that's focused, but really align with that target audience so that it helps you better reach your goals.Reference Links for Chris Stuart:BerkshireHathaway Home Services: https://www.bhhs.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What are my predictions for 2021? Instead of trying to predict the future, which I don't think anyone can do accurately, I'd like to offer you my advice as your virtual CMO. Focusing on those key areas that I am focusing on in writing my next book, here is where I would invest my marketing budget across Search, Email, and Social to help you reach your business goals and improve the digital and social media marketing for your organization or brand.Episodes Mentioned:192: My Marketing Technology Toolstack for 2021191: The Technology and Tools You Need for Your Marketing Infrastructure (Part 1: WordPress Plugins)185: Why You Need to Invest in Content Longevity and Discoverability Going Forward183: Influencer Marketing for Search Engine Optimization: Building Backlinks for SEO178: WHY You Need to and HOW to RESET Your Marketing TODAY [Jay Baer Interview]138: Customer Experience Marketing: Why You Must Embrace It to Stand Out as a Business [Dan Gingiss Interview]Key Highlights[03:39] Evolution of Social Media[05:28] Why You Need to Have Digital Presence[07:29] The Digital Gateway[08:20] Three Main Ways In Which You Touch People[09:04] What Is Library of Content?[10:04] The Importance of Keywords[11:23] The Role of Backlinks[14:29] Optimizing Your Paid Campaigns[17:26] 4 Main Types of Content[20:12] Why Email Marketing Is Still Effective[22:09] The Aspect of Customer Education[24:19] Final Part: Social[25:23] Why You Need An Employee Influencer Program[27:12] Leveraging User Generated Content[28:31] Should I Go With Paid Social?[31:47] SummaryNotable QuotesDo searches for keywords that are important to your company, and start to create lists, look at the keywords that are relevant to your company. Look at the search volumes, look at the Keyword Difficulty which sem rush and many others provide you. And then look at search intent, create a list, and then fill in the gaps. If you have a lead magnet, that's where this type of content would come into play as a reason for them to provide their email address. This is where you can now begin to develop a relationship. It's all about like no one trust, beginning with your website, your digital discovery. Email gives us the ability to really architect a series of messages, a type of engagement over a period of time, that will increase the chances of us being able to build, like knowing trust. Email is the area where you do not need to invest a lot of people, you need to have the right tool, and you need to architect the right marketing, automation, messages, and sequences.You need to be continually building that list, continually communicating with current customers and prospects. And to do so, you're probably over time going to be creating more and more lead magnetsEvery company should have an influence a program that includes your employees, that includes your partners, that includes your customers, your fans, it should be all-inclusive, that anybody who loves your brand, can play a role can share in the experience.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Amanda Russell, author of The Influencer Code and Professor of Influencer Marketing at the University of Texas, Austin, joins me for a special interview about building influence in today's digital world. Amanda has an amazing life story of competing at a global level and then starting over from scratch, but her trained skills combined with intuition in seeking relationships with influencers and capitalizing on the opportunities that they brought her has led her to a successful career that my listeners can learn a great deal about influence from.Our New Podcast!The School of Influence Podcast with Amanda Russell and Neal Schaffer: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/school-influence-podcast-amanda-russell-neal-schaffer/id1544198952Key Highlights[02:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Amanda Russell[04:40] Who is Amanda?[09:27] Transitioning from Athlete to Being An Influencer[12:58] How Amanda Got Into Marketing and Advertising[16:44] Amanda's Youtube Journey[19:14] The Starting Point for Amanda for Social Media and Influencer Marketing[23:01] Amanda's Frist Producer Film Editing[26:31] Why Amanda Started Teaching at University[32:31] The Story Behind "The Influencer Code"[34:16] Amanda's Different Perspective In the Influencer Code[37:01] How Amanda and I's Collaborative Relationship Started[39:12] My Podcast with Amanda[42:02] Our Podcast Launch[42:45] Connect with AmandaNotable QuotesI think there's a difference between following your passion and being passionate about what you do. And sometimes, in order to get where you want, you have to do a lot of things you don't want to do. And sometimes you have to take steps to the side or what looks on paper like going backward.People build the relationship, they build it with you. And so if you start swapping out people, you lose.We forget that anytime you want to make a sale, if you want to get income, you have to work with people. It begins with a sort of re-educating everything you know about influencer marketing because marketers and businesses have been misled.Do you want to be known for what do you want to be known for, then that needs to be, and whether you like it or not, if you don't have a presence, then people are just going to develop for you.Influencers, whatever it is, opportunities are so much easier to achieve. If we go up too often, we think that opportunities are so far out there.We don't realize how easy things are to get if you can just figure out who are the influential forces. The things that we can achieve and the big brands or the big like pie in the sky ideas are so achievable if we just go after them.Amanda Russell Links:The Influencer Code: https://amzn.to/3rEufyI (affiliate)Amanda's Website: https://amandarussell.co/Amanda on Instagram: hLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This is part 2 (see Ep. 191 for part 1) of an introduction to my recommended marketing technology tools and apps for 2021, including a detailed breakdown of what tools I use and recommend for search engine optimization (SEO), content creation, writer marketplaces and tools, blogger outreach tools, backlink monitoring tools, website analytics, email marketing software, email verification, lead magnet promotion, social media dashboards, video marketing tools, and podcasting tools.Tools Mentioned in the EpisodeSEO ToolsSEMrush https://nealschaffer.com/semrush (affiliate)Ahrefs https://ahrefs.comMoz https://moz.comContent Creation ToolsFrase https://frase.ioClearscope https://clearscope.ioWriter Marketplaces & ToolsUpwork https://upwork.comWriterAccess https://writeraccess.comCopyscape https://copyscape.comBlogger Outreach ToolsRespona https://respona.comPostaga https://postaga.com/Apollo https://apollo.ioBacklink Monitor ToolsLinkody https://www.linkody.com/Linkio https://linkio.comLinkMiner https://linkminer.comMonitor Backlinks https://monitorbacklinks.com/Backlink SEO https://backlinkseo.comWebsite AnalyticsGoogle Analytics https://analytics.google.com/Wyzant https://www.wyzant.com/Email Marketing SoftwareMailChimp https://mailchimp.comMailerLite https://nealschaffer.com/mailerlite (affiliate)ConvertKit https://convertkit.comActiveCampaign https://nealschaffer.com/activecampaign (affiliate)Email Verification ToolsVoilaNorbert https://voilanorbert.comLead Magnet ToolsOptinMonster http://nealschaffer.com/optinmonster (affiliate)LeadPages https://nealschaffer.com/leadpages (affiliate)GetSiteControl http://nealschaffer.com/getsitecontrol (affiliate)Social Media DashboardsAgoraPulse https://nealschaffer.com/agorapulse (affiliate)Sendible https://nealLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As we approach the end of the year, it's time to do an audit of our digital and social presence. One of the audits that I recommend you do on an annual basis is for all of the technology you use to support your marketing infrastructure to help you Maximize Your Social Influence. I intended this episode to be more comprehensive, but there are so many tools and apps that I would recommend, after going through Content Management Systems and WordPress plugins, I decided to divide this into a two-part series.Even if you are not using WordPress or you think you have all of the plugins you need, I highly recommend you give this episode a listen so that you can hear about some functionality that your current website might not have!Links for Select Tools Mentioned in the Episode:Ad Inserter: https://wordpress.org/plugins/ad-inserter/CoSchedule: https://nealschaffer.com/coschedule [affiliate link]Fanciest Author Box: https://fanciestauthorbox.com/Featured Images in RSS for Mailchimp & More: https://wordpress.org/plugins/featured-images-for-rss-feeds/Link Whisper: https://nealschaffer.com/linkwhisper [affiliate link -  use code neal15 for a 15$ discount]LuckyWP Table of Contents: https://wordpress.org/plugins/luckywp-table-of-contents/Monarch Plugin: https://www.elegantthemes.com/plugins/monarch/OneSignal Push Notifications: https://wordpress.org/plugins/onesignal-free-web-push-notifications/PublishPress Revisions: https://wordpress.org/plugins/revisionary/Q2W3 Fixed Widget: https://wordpress.org/plugins/q2w3-fixed-widget/ShortPixel Image Optimizer: https://wordpress.org/plugins/shortpixel-image-optimiser/URL Shortener Pro by MyThemeShop: https://mythemeshop.com/plugins/url-shortener-pro/WP Meta and Date Remover: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-meta-and-date-remover/WP Rocket: https://nealschaffer.com/wprocket [affiliate link]Yoast SEO Premium: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/Previous Episodes Mentioned:187: What If I Told You You Already Had Enough Content to be Successful?91: Announcing the Social Tools Summit71: Neal's Fave Social Media Productivity Tips & Tools28: How to Audit Your Social Media PresenceLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Is there something holding you or your brand back from digital success? Could it be that you might be a little on the shy side when it comes to a social network, or content medium, or just in general? If so, this is the episode for you! Fellow digital marketing expert is going to help you understand:How to move from shy introvert to showing up onlineWhy the idea that some people might not like you is a good thing.How to best navigate all of the marketing advice and choices you have online into your own context.This episode will dive into the psychology of how to become a better entrepreneur and marketer online.Key Highlights[01:27] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Bob Gentle[06:17] How to Begin the Process from Being Shy to Showing Up Online[12:45] Why You Need To Show Up[15:40] Should You Worry About Negative Reactions?[18:18] Be Yourself![19:52] How To Put Context Of Your Own[20:34] What is a Content Portfolio?[20:53] The Differences Between Short-term, Medium-term, and Long-term Investments[25:03] Why Having Investment Portfolio Is Important?[27:46] Bob's Advice And Recommendations On Where Should Clients Focus More Into 2021[30:37] The Importance of Building Emotional Connection With Your Audience[32:07] Connect With BobNotable QuotesYou can't necessarily do your best work because you're not reaching the right people. And the easiest way to do that is by building your profile online, building your personal brand, and building your influence. So I came to the point where I realized No, you just have to do this. At some point, in a business, there's gonna be a crisis, whether it's self-inflicted, or from competition. It's just not easy. And you constantly have to pivot and deal with these crisis situations. And I almost think that showing up, if you're not able to do that, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you're not going to be able to deal with actually more critically important crises to your business. And the recommendation by all experts, including my own about consistency, right, is that if you show up consistently, the algorithm recognizes that you have a greater chance of showing up in the feeds of your potential customers consistently.And everything you should, everything you do online should really be for that third of people that are just going to connect with it, they're going to like it. And you have to embrace that the other two-thirds of people don't really matter to you, they're not your audience, there will be a small proportion who won't like it. But you can't have success online. without accepting that two-thirds of people are not for you. If you worry about those that don't like you, you fail to serve those that do like you.If you want to be successful in business, you need to be a critical thinker. I realized that the more you show of yourself your raw humaneness, the more and deeper you can connect with others.Guest LinksBob's Digital Marketing Agency: https://amplifyme.agency/Bob's "The Digital MarketingLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Since publishing The Age of Influence, my thoughts on influencer marketing and social media marketing in general continue to evolve. As I prepare for the writing of my next book, I wanted to share with you my latest views on how you and your business can best leverage social media for marketing in 2021 and beyond: By looking at social media as a marketplace for collaboration and strategically moving social media users through your funnel of Social Media Relationships.Key Highlights[02:55] The Concept of Social Media Relationships[04:29] Why Are You Not Getting More From Social Media?[05:17] Social Media Is About Collaboration[07:36] The Funnel of Social Media Relationships[08:05] Getting Your Audience In The Tier of Followers and Engagers[09:28] Social Share of Voice[12:25] Why You Should Not Ignore Engagements From Your Followers[17:28] The ROI of Deepening Relationships With People[18:18] Why You Need to Incite Word of Mouth Marketing[21:06] Working With Influencers[23:53] What Can You Get from Collaborating with Influencers?[26:10] Invest In People Instead of Paid AdvertisingNotable QuotesThe algorithms favor people's content over businesses content because businesses tend to post promotional content.  Social media should not be about marketing, but about collaboration.Just by sort of retooling how we think about social media, I believe, you begin to measure the right activities.If you listen, it gives you infinite source of data regarding consumer demographics and buying trends. It helps you gauge consumers interests, how they interact with competitors, and content. And it helps measure the aggregate interaction between a brand and the public.Every engagement that you get on social media is an opportunity to deepen that relationship.Instead of thinking of social media as how many clicks that I get still important, but maybe it's how many people that I engage in conversation today.Social media when when it was born, it was all about word of mouth marketing, that just does not happen organically any more. We need to incite word of mouth marketing. We Truly treasure, not just the relatability, but also the authenticity and the realness that people bring that it's just hard for businesses to replicate. The biggest ROI of you know, going above and beyond advocacy is the byproduct of influencer relationships, which is content, the content that you can co-create, or you can have created for you can be a big boon for all of your digital marketing.                        Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A lot of businesses don't realize that, like blogs, podcasts are not just a personal content medium but can also be used by businesses. To explain the various benefits of podcasting for businesses, I am joined by Robert Loewenthal, Founder and CEO of Whooshkaa, Australia's leading podcast hosting solution who have been successfully expanding globally as we speak.Robert will help enlighten you on:- How some companies are using targeted podcasts as part of their outbound sales and marketing.- What is a branded podcast?- How can podcasts help bridge the communication gap during covid?Episodes mentioned in the show:179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different PodcastsKey Highlights[02:52] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Robert Loewenthal[05:11] Who is Robert and Whooshkaa?[06:45] How Robert Come Up with the Name Whooshka[11:49] Using Podcast As Part of Outbound Sales and Marketing[15:52] How Podcasting Work Traditionally[17:16] Private Podcast[20:07] Is It Easier to Create Audio Content Than Video Content?[22:09] What Are Branded Podcasts?[23:44] An Example of Creative Storytelling from A Brand[24:54] Ways of Leveraging Podcast[26:38] Podcast AS A Tool of Bridging Communication Gap[27:30] Why Internal Communication Strategy Is Important[31:00] The Supply and Demand of Podcasting[32:48] Additional Podcast Statistics[34:21] Connect with Rob and Whooshkaa[35:13] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesYou've got a one-on-one relationship with a potential prospect. And you're positioning yourself as a subject matter expert, and they're listening to you.Podcast can also be just a purely means for communication.The trick with good branded content is actually just telling a great story, and making sure the listeners know that you're associated with it, so that they walk away thinking, that's a forward-thinking brand.An advantage of audio is its mobility.But audio once again, use it as a strategy to complement those other messages and get your message out there.As a CEO, you've got to be thick and deep in the weeds when it comes to product and marketing. So you've got to keep showing up every day.It doesn't hurt to make your content work harder, and have an audio strategy. There are two recommendations. Obviously, they're very self serving. But we see clients all the time customers podcast is doing this successfully. And it's not just a fad. This is a definite trend that will continue for the next 1020 years.Once you feel like you have your library of content on your website, that's where you want to look to expand, and maybe just maybe podcast, he may be right for you, or for your business.Guest LinksWhooshkaa: https://www.whooshkaa.com/Robert Lowenthal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-loewenthal-8a66804/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

We are told that, in order to yield more digital influence and be more successful in digital marketing, that we need to create more and more content, and the more content the better.But is that really the case?I will tackle this myth using my own real-life experience and instead help you transition off that hamster wheel of content to something that requires a fraction of the resources and will help you become more successful!Episodes mentioned in the show:186: Content Marketing: Why It is Now a Business Strategy [Mariah MacInnes Interview]185: Why You Need to Invest in Content Longevity and Discoverability Going Forward183: Influencer Marketing for Search Engine Optimization: Building Backlinks for SEO137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition129: How Fresh is Your Content? A "Fresh" Look at Content MarketingKey Highlights[01:34] Content As The Currency of Social Media[04:26] Old Content Still Bring Value[05:31] The Supply and Demand of Content Medium[06:27] Longevity of Content[08:25] Keyword Cannibalization[09:16] Why You Need to Refresh Your Old Content[11:04] Do You Really Need Too Much Content?[12:21] The Power of Backlinks[14:00] Tools For Determining 404 Website Errors[14:35] Why You Need to Clean Up 404 Errors[16:22] Avoid Competing Blog Posts That Compete for the Same Keywords[20:30] The Importance of Targeting the Right Keywords[21:48] Do A Regular Audit of Your Content[22:26] Library of Content[23:04] My Process of Targeting Customers At Every Stage of Funnel[32:06] The Hamster Wheel of Content RevisionNotable QuotesBut if you think about it, you know, every influencer is a content creator, not every content creator becomes an influencer. But content is sort of the currency of digital and social media.Number one, they're always revising it. And number two, they're realizing they don't need to create new content for it. They are revising old content and republishing it as new content.So the more old content you have, the more you feel compelled to generate backlinks in order to get those content to appear higher in search engine rankings. And therefore the more work right, it once becomes a logistical nightmare.Because the more content you have, the larger the database, the more resources in terms of memory storage that the web host server requires.I want whenever Google indexes my content, I want them to be assured that it's going to stay evergreen, if it's not, it's going to be revised or it's going to be forwarded. But every single piece of content is index worthy, and it is link worthy and what have you.Library of content that will help potential customers not only find you, but educate them on their buying journey so that they end up buying from you and you alone.You need to understand what is your target customer at every stage of the funnel, what type of content might they be searching for on Google, do some keyword analysis and then create the content.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Join me in this interview with "Content Queen" Mariah MacInnes as we go deep into the value that content has for your business. Among other things, Mariah provides a refreshing perspective on:the four pillars you can implement into your content strategy so you never run out of content ideashow to be more consistent with content creation without it consuming your timethe actions you need to take to ensure you get more engagement with your content online.Key Highlights[00:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mariah MacInnes[04:41] How Mariah Got Into Content Marketing[08:55] Implementing Content Strategy with Four Different Pillars[12:40] Educating Through Storytelling[13:25] The Importance of Listening to Your Audience[14:49] Why You Need to Share[17:25] How 4 Pillars Work Differently[22:22] How to Be Consistent in Content Creation[23:20] Repurposing Content[24:38] Create Content Strategy Based On Your Personality[29:52] Actions To Do To Ensure Engagement from Content[31:00] Look At Your Statistics![31:38] Why Two-Way Communication Matters[37:22] Connect With Mariah[38:16] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesMarketing is not just content marketing. It is now a business strategy of its own.A really key driver to one of those pillars you mentioned was, which is the website, our main objective, from our content, especially as a business is to get people to our website so that we can, you know, convert.So to inform is to promote, to educate is to of course educate, to engage, is to have that two-way communication, and really bring your audience into your content through questions through storytelling.Continue to share because even if you're not directly saying, hey, buy this, you know, do this do that you're actually building up these fans rather than just followers.It comes down to being really honest with yourself and not having those really high expectations.I think the one thing we forget about consistency with content is you know your topic.I always recommend I don't think people do enough at it is look at what the stats are telling you. It's all about, you know, really harnessing on that social part of social media, or even with content, it is a very social thing. And as humans, we are designed for connection.It's not a matter of having more content, it's a matter of having the right content.When it comes to content creation, you really do have to love it.                   Guest Links:Mariah's Website: https://www.contentqueenmariah.com/Mariah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/contentqueen_mariah/Mariah's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariahmacinnes/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As we close out a year and enter a new one, it's time to holistically look at our digital and social media marketing strategy.If content is the currency of digital and social media, where should we be investing our content creation efforts going forward?Here's my advice, where I really juxtapose social media with all other content in terms of longevity and discoverability to give you a clear picture as to where to get the biggest bang for your marketing buck going forward.Episodes mentioned in the show:179: The What, Why, and How of PodcastingKey Highlights[01:19] Where Should We Be Making Strategic Investments Moving Forward?[02:50] The Problem With Social Media[05:55] How Social Media Should Be Displaced[06:39] The Lifespan of Content in Social Media[07:39] Content Mediums[10:14] You Need to Be Everywhere![11:00] Which Medium Should I Strategically Focus On?[12:06] Going All In[12:55] Redefining Social Media Strategy[13:28] Content Discoverability and Longevity[14:22] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesIt's really time to take a step back combined with obviously the pandemic that we continue to exist in. And the realization that we need to get better at creating relationships digitally, with consumers and with buyers. If you're going to be on the content, hamster wheel, don't you want to be on a hamster wheel that has more impact, where it has more longevity, as well as discoverability.And here's the thing, you can't just have all your eggs in one basket, you need to be everywhere.So you need to be everywhere. And you can't be everywhere. So you need to choose your priorities.But there's a lot of people that are looking for podcasts. And once they get engaged in the podcast, it is a very, very special relationship that you build with people. And I think if you go all in, you can really make an impact.And I think that the Coronavirus, forced us those that weren't as invested in digital as we should have been, to really do that I do believe this decline in social media reach should be pushing us more to do more collaborations with influencers.They were able to create their kingdoms on these other platforms where there's more longevity more discoverability, and then translate that into a large social media presence, which continues that brand awareness.You don't necessarily have to be posting content every day. You don't even have to post your own content every day. But it frees you up to truly engage with others and find your customers find your fans. Find your collaboration partners. And I think that is going to be the best time invested in social media.                             Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today's special guest is Mitchell Levy, global authority on credibility and the author of the brand new book Credibility Nation. In this episode Mitchell breaks down why understanding your customer's pain point is the key to success in digital and social media, specifically:Why whatever you do in digital and social media, your messaging should be focused on your audience and not yourselfHow to create an audience-centric mindsetHow to revise your digital and social media marketing strategy with your audience in mindKey Highlights[02:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mitchell Levy[04:58] Who is Mitchell?[06:46] Understanding the Area of Audience Pain Point[10:17] Value Proposition[11:46] Examples of Brands that Articulates Their CPOP[15:54] How to Put Your Mission Statement Into Your Branding[17:22] What is CPOP?[18:25] The Three-Step Process to CPOP[22:53] How Mitchell Recommends His Listeners to Foster An Audience Centric Mindset[26:21] The Process of Creating An Audience-Centric Mindset[27:56] Mitchell's Recommendation on Revising Your Marketing Strategy to Align to Customer-Centric View[31:36] How Does the Audience-Centric View Apply to Your Brand's Credibility?[33:19] The Credibility Nation Book[36:40] Connect with MitchellNotable QuotesCredibility is not a word, it is a way of being. And if you're not credible, you're dubious. And so the question you always want to ask yourself is do people perceive you as credible or dubious credibility.If you can't come across as somebody who wants to serve others, if you can't come across as somebody who truly understands what it is your client base your prospects base is looking for, and it doesn't come across from an authority perspective, somebody else will. In today's world, so much of our business comes from us from word of mouth marketing. And if somebody your who knows you and remembers your see pop, when they went across one of their friends, they want to be supportive.The process of creating an audience-centric mindset begins with defining that customer point of pain and really continuing to internalize it, share it, optimize it, bounce it off other people.Credibility is being known, being likable, and being trustworthy. And by being known, it's not that I know of you, it's that I know your intent, your commitment, your desire to serve others, your integrity.Position yourself better before the competitors come along and take things away because what they're going to do is they want to hear they actually want to hear from your true clients what their pain point was and what you helped solve.Reference Links for Mitchell Levy:Mitchell Levy's Website: https://mitchelllevy.com/Credibility Nation on Amazon: https://amzn.to/37FMegx [affiliate]Credibility Nation Memberships: https://lifelonglearning.credibilitynation.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

You're blogging - check. You're doing your keyword research and focusing on competitive keywords - check. You're optimizing all of your blog posts for SEO - check.You're probably doing all of the above, but you're still not ranking in Google - why?That is exactly the situation I was in until I embarked on doing some research. And from that research, I have come to some conclusions.The final frontier of SEO and ranking in search engines is in generating backlinks. And if you want to generate backlinks you need to be proactive in doing so.This episode will hopefully be an eye-opener for you as I introduce my own research and methodology so that you can maximize your own social influence.Episodes Mentioned in the Show:181: How to Optimize Your Content Publishing on Your Blog and Social Media177: The 11 Blogging Mistakes Your Business _Might_ Be Making160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The CompetitionKey Highlights[02:46] The Three Pillars of Digital Marketing That Every Company Needs[03:24] Site Usability and Interface[04:52] Three Areas I Recommend To Rank for Your Blog Posts[07:34] The Primary Purpose of Blogging[10:12] All About Backlinking[12:47] How to Do A Backlink and Domain Authority Analysis[13:29] Ways to Get Backlinks[14:52] Three Different Areas Where High Domain Sites Get Backlinks[18:30] Blogging Outreach[23:45] What Is A Link Swap?[25:26] Why You Need to Focus On Your Site's InfluenceNotable QuotesThe first thing before even writing blog content is to understand the keyword research. It starts with the keyword research for your website.When people are linking to you, it means that they're listening, and they're paying attention. And as more and more people pay attention to what you say, you get more links back to your property. And Google sees you have a lot of authority. So when done, right, guest blogging is extremely impactful, and can really help the SEO of your own blog posts that you link to.Do this backlink analysis, find a lot of websites that are linking back to your competitor, not to you, if they are blog content, pay attention to the writers.If it's done in a natural, organic way you're serving, at the end of the day, the reader looking for information, and hopefully, your information is better than your competitors. And this increases the chance that they find your information. When your site has more influence, it becomes easier to guess a blog.Reference Links:SEMrush: https://nealschaffer.com/semrush (affiliate)Brandon Gailie's The Blogging Millionaire Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blogging-millionaire/id1072931592Neil Patel: https://neilpatel.comLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Join me for this insightful interview with branding guru, fellow podcaster, and YouTube influencer Philip VanDusen. We talk all about the power of networking and the impact it can have on your business, especially as we are in the midst of this coronarvirus pandemic. Some of the things we discussed include:How the pandemic has effected our decision-making powerThe power of mastermind groupsHow "natural networking" - in a new way - can help you scale your business quicklyKey Highlights[03:28] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Philip VanDusen[07:22] The Effects of Pandemic in Networking[08:39] Things About Social Media that Influencers Need to Pay More Attention[11:13] Why People Need Confidence and Affirmations[14:51] Imposter Syndrome[16:24] Why You Need to Reach Out[19:13] What People Are Missing Out Because of COVID?[20:49] The Guild Effect[23:58] What Made Philip Decide In The Mastermind[27:11] How To Go About Finding Mastermind?[36:03] Difference Between Mastermind And Group Coaching[38:18] Connect With PhilipNotable QuotesPeople need affirmation. And I think that people were getting those sorts of affirmations or kind of support of their decisions and their movements, without even realizing it, when we were in those office situations or studio situation. If you take the same kind of perspective, with networking, then, and reaching out on social media and that more one to one way, it becomes a lot less than intimidating, and it's a little less scary in terms of feeling rejected or ignored. And I think you know, one of the things that hold people back from doing this is that you know that insecurity the imposter syndrome rejection feeling of possibility of being rejected.And I think that with Coronavirus, because we are disconnected, that whole learning process of that comes from networking, right? Because it is a give and take, but just the things you learn from people, it just is so invaluable.It is not just self serving as a content producer, it is amplifying your message to a broader audience and, you know, creating a geometric progression of the value that you're putting out into the world.Businesses need people, they need people to buy for them, their products and services, but people don't buy from brands, people buy from people, people want to do business with people, the more you can humanize what you do, and to downscale what you do from brand to person, the better off you're going to be in terms of making connection.Guest LinksPhilip VanDusen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd2J-PizcFDxWHBBfRkp38QPhilip's Website: https://philipvandusen.com/The Brand Design Masters Podcast: https://philipvandusen.com/bdmpodcastLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As you publish more blog posts and content throughout social media on a wide variety of subjects that are relevant to your business, how do you know which content is performing better or worse? How can you take that engagement data and feed it back into your publishing infrastructure to create more or less content about what types of content that are relevant to your company, and in doing so generating higher and higher ROI for whatever metric you are tracking? In this episode I introduce a quarterly content audit which I just started doing which gives you specific instructions of how to do this with your own content using my own blog as a case study. You'll learn about the concept of content buckets that I introduced back in 2013 in my Maximize Your Social book and how to apply that in PDCA style with a data-driven approach which allows you to further optimize your marketing with every (quarterly) iteration!Episodes mentioned in the show:137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The CompetitionKey Highlights[01:06] The Notion of Regular [04:20] Why You Need to Categorize Your Content[05:58] My Process of Categorizing and Analyzing the Performance of My Content[08:34] Guest Blogger Application[09:03] The Process of Audit[12:08] Performing Keyword Search[15:17] Google Analytics[15:42] My Formula of Analyzing My Content Performance[16:10] The Metrics I Am Looking At When Auditing[21:00] How the Process of Audit Helped Me[24:17] SummaryNotable QuotesIt really comes down to no matter what business you are, you have various products or services, you have various demographics, various needs various solutions. And you can organize your content into these different buckets, these different categories of content.And what happens when you begin with this process is over the course of time, if you go back, you're going to realize that some categories performed better on some networks than others. On YouTube, it's a lot easier for content creators to compete with brands, because so few brands, get it and do it. But a blog is something that brands can become more influential, they just have more resources to pour into buying content, buying SEO services, and what have you.It's about quality, not quantity.It gives you a really, really good feel as to what content you should be publishing more of less of how you should pivot, you only get here until you have a minimum number of content. So when you have that mindset, when you have the process when you do the audit, and obviously you have to have the content and be active on social media for this to work, you can begin to craft a really, really great data driven system to optimize your content for whatever metrics you want to follow.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you want to yield influence in digital and social media you need to become a content creator. Not all content has the same longevity or impact, but if you wanted to make the biggest bang for your buck and create the most impactful content that can help drive your business, a book is the answer.  You'll find out why in this interview with published author, speaker, and entrepreneur Josh Steimle who will share with you the why as well as how to get started, how to keep going and not burn out, and how to leverage your book to grow your business.Episodes mentioned in the show and related spisodes:179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts149: How to Become a Published Author [Lee Constantine from Publishizer Interview]Key Highlights[03:31] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Josh Steimle[05:06] How Josh Started Marketing and His Writing Career[07:10] Why Books Are the Best Way to Influence Business Audience and Leaders[12:00] Getting Access to CMOs[13:33] The Networking Power in Content Creation Process[14:34] How Can You Get Started in Writing A Book?[16:43] How to Find People to Work With Your Book?[19:41] The Process of Putting Pen to Paper[20:30] Ways You Can Get Content Out Other Than Writing[22:06] Should You Hire A Ghostwriter?[24:51] Josh's Advice on How to Avoid Getting Burned Out Midway Through Writing Process[29:28] Self Publishing VS Publishers[34:13] How to Leverage Book to Grow Your Business[35:07] Ways You Can Market Your Book[39:55] Connect with JoshNotable QuotesSocial media, it's great. It's got its place. But it's temporary. Whereas a book, it's kind of forever.For those people listening, hopefully, you see the power of having a book and the very even if you don't sell many copies, there's so much value in not only in writing it and what can happen, but in the process itself.The first step is to look at your identity, who you are, what your role is, what you're trying to accomplish and create some sort of vision from that.Getting very clear on what that vision is, and the purpose or the why behind your book is really the first step because that dictates everything that you do after that. Everybody's got a book in them, but not everybody necessarily should write that book themselves.One of the key tools to combat burnout or writer's block when you're writing a book is to have an outline that you created the beginning a clear outline, Josh Bernoff calls it a fat outline an outline with a lot of detail in it.Having that strong purpose. Having that why is another way to keep from burnout.Contact Josh SteimlePublished Author Program: https://www.publishedauthor.com/Meltwater Social Media FestivalRegister for free here: https://nealschaffer.com/meltwaterLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you are a marketer, entrepreneur, or business owner and you are listening to this podcast, why aren't you creating your own?Podcasts are easier to create than you might think.They are also one of the most powerful forms of influencer marketing, as I will explain to you in this episode.If you've been on the sidelines, this episode will hopefully push you over the edge into launching your own podcast!Episodes mentioned in the show:175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different PodcastsLinks mentioned in the show: (affiliate)External Microphones for Podcast Recording:Samson Q2U: https://amzn.to/32WJJn9Audio Technica ATR2100: https://amzn.to/3j3LOnaBlue Yeti: https://amzn.to/32TWoqWRODE Podcaster: https://amzn.to/3iSKW4uPodcast Hosts:Buzzsprout: https://nealschaffer.com/buzzsproutLibsynAnchor.fmCaptivateWhooshkaaOutsourcing Help:Fiverr: https://nealschaffer.com/fiverrUpworkPodcast Audio Recording SoftwareSquadcast: https://nealschaffer.com/squadcastZencasterZoomSkypeGoogle MeetKey Highlights[06:35] The Most Misunderstood Form of Marketing[09:04] Why It Is Powerful To Have a Podcast[09:44] Influencer Marketing in Podcasting[10:40] Four Main Types of Content Mediums[11:28] Podcast Statistics[12:18] The Average Hours Podcast Listeners Spend On Listening to Podcasts Every Week[12:44] How Podcast Generates Relationships[12:33] The Currency of Digital Marketing[13:45] How to Repurpose Podcast[14:42] 7 Points You Need To Get Started in Podcasting[16:51] 5 Choices of Platform to Create and Upload Your Podcast[18:12] ConclusionNotable QuotesNot only can you ask other people to be on your podcast when I'm talking about other people, but I'm also talking about influencers in your industry, other content creators, you can now access their audience by appearing on their podcast as a guest.That is a significant time that they are investing in your content more than any other network really more than any other type of content medium or social media. That is a unique thing that podcasting has going for it.Another great thing about podcasts is they generate content, you need content for everything that you do in digital and social media. It is the currency of digital marketing. Podcasting is the ultimate media in which you can repurpose. But I want to end this really short and sweet episode by seeding you with what I wish everybody had taught me when I started podcasting, you don't need to overthink this. There's no extra advice needed. You're all set. Don't overthink it, do it implement action, execute.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The digital first mindset that your business needs to survive today is only part of the story. My special guest for today, the legendary marketing author and speaker Jay Baer, argues that the circumstances that we live in today require every business to function as a startup and create an entirely new relationship with your customers and potential clients.Listen in as Jay gives some specific advice as to how to do this - hint: "FAQ" is a strategic keyword here - as well as also provides some strategic wisdom around the customer experience marketing gap that he sees and why it is critical to close it to remain relevant today.Key Highlights[03:07] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jay Baer[05:20] Who Is Jay and His Books[09:05] Jay's Advice To Other Businesses On Resetting Marketing Strategy[10:58] The Power of FAQs[13:41] Jay's Advice on Post-Coronavirus Customer Experience[17:36] Three Things Customer Care About[19:16] Why You Need To Be Quick?[23:40] Making Your FAQ Better[32:21] Pivot Needs To Be Part of Your Business DNA[33:58] Connect With Jay[34:21] Final AdviceNotable QuotesToday, in the strange kind of COVID times, it doesn't really matter whether you've been in business for five years or 25 years or 75 years or 115 years. Every business today has to function essentially like a startup. Because you have to fundamentally rewire the relationships between your business and your customers, and prospective customers. You can't take any customer knowledge for granted. Customer experience is a term of art that was invented to describe what is in reality, a collection of hundreds of individual intersection points, between any business and any customer. The customer experiences the totality of every decision you make about your business.Whatever the situation might be in your organization, making the relationship between your business and the customers transcend the transaction.Everything about the pandemic sucks. We're all on the same page. But trust me when I tell you, you will never have this opportunity again. So you can either go under a tortoise shell and bemoan the fact that everything sucks, or you can continue to be unhappy about that, but recognize that from a business standpoint, this opportunity is unlikely to reoccur, and you can completely re-engineer your business for the better if you choose to do so.Jay Baer Links:Convince & Convert: https://www.convinceandconvert.com/Jay Baer: https://www.jaybaer.com/Social Pros Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/social-pros-podcast/id499844469Episodes Mentioned in the Show:138: Customer Experience Marketing: Why You Must Embrace It to Stand Out as a Business [Dan Gingiss Interview]35: Youtility: Jay Baer Shares Insights on Mobile, Content Marketing, and Social MediaLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I have been blogging since 2008, and to be honest with you I really didn't think strategically about blogging since fairly recently when I started talking about the freshness of content on episode 129 almost two years ago. Since then I have come to realize the mistakes of my own blog as well as those that I have helped in a variety of capacities over the years. Since Google is the biggest digital influencer of them all, I wanted to share with you the 11 blogging mistakes that I see businesses make yet very few podcasters or people in the blogosphere talk about. I hope after listening to this episode you will have a much more strategic look at blogging and how impactful it can be for your business.For those of you interested in my fractional / outsourced CMO service, please contact me here: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/Episodes mentioned in the show:160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition129: How Fresh is Your Content?Key Highlights[04:57] Three Areas of Digital and Social Media Marketing[08:23] The Base of Digital Influence[11:10] How to Perform Keyword Research[13:51] How to Perform Search Intent[15:35] Why Blogging One Topic is Better than Random Things[21:03] Mistake #4[22:41] Mistake #5[24:08] Mistake #6[26:44] Keyword Stuffing[31:43] Why You Need to Find Strategic KeywordNotable QuotesWe're just seeing an acceleration of this digital transformation that people have always been digital-first. And now businesses are forced to be digital-first. So when we think about digital, right, how do we engage with our customers? How do we find new clients? It comes down to digital and social media is actually part of that digitalWhen we talk about digital and social media influence, there was no one more influential than Google. The reason I like to pick one topic, like influencer marketing, is you want to build authority in that topic in Google's eyes, you want that to outweigh other content on your blog on your website.You need to have non-branded content. And this goes into, you know, the whole idea of a blog is it's giving your company a social voice, it's allowing you to build influence with Google, by blogging on content that people are actually searching for.  Links mentioned:SEMrush: https://nealschaffer.com/semrush [affiliate link]The Blogging Millionaire on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blogging-millionaire/id1072931592Ahrefs study on blog traffic: https://ahrefs.com/blog/search-traffic-study/The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/Yoast SEO Plugin: Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today the Godfather of content marketing, Joe Pulizzi, joins me as a special guest to help you find opportunity in the midst of the coronavirus. Our episode on "Corona Marketing" led us to talk about a wide variety of things your company can be doing _today_to grow your business despite the times that we live in. These include:1.  How marketers can cut through clutter with their content.2. Strategies on how to build an audience in a recessionary environment.3. What subscriber channels make the most sense to drive revenue.Key Highlights[06:05] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Joe Pulizzi[8:00] Where to Start Resetting Content Strategy After the Pandemic[12:10] Content Energy[14:57] Creating Emotional Connection Using Digital Tools[23:36] Understanding Who's Engaging in Your Content And Who's Not[31:10] Instilling Passionate Influencers Into Content Marketing[33:57] Strategies and How to Build Audience In A Recessionary Environment[40:38] Different Subscriber Channels That Drive Revenue[43:06] Joe's Take on Virtual EventsNotable QuotesYou only have so much energy for content creation and distribution, there are only so many things you can do to the audience that you focus on.Now is the time to reset, ask yourself the tough questions. What really, who am I really trying to target? What is the story I'm trying to tell? How is that story truly differentiated? Because to your point, if it's not truly differentiated, you're never gonna cut through all this clutter? You really have to have something special. It's hard to have something special when your attention is all over the place.Perhaps because of the Coronavirus and so many companies are trying to think more digital-first realizing this is the only way to really engage. Maybe they are seeing how they can create more than emotional connection and really serve.What this is honestly, what I would like to see it not everybody has to have a content marketing strategy. You could still traditional market your way to some success. But I would like people to choose, I like either to do it and do it really, really well. Or don't do it at all.What do we in this whole ballgame for our job in marketing is to maintain or change the behavior of our customers and our audience? And if you're not doing that with something that you're from a content standpoint, then it's probably time to stop it.I think we'd agree that what's happening with the pandemic is going to forever change a lot of things about how we communicate about a lot of different things. So really, now is the best time to figure that out. The most important thing that I see is I want you to move from your followers and your fans and your subscribers on social platforms and move and convert those to email as quickly as you can. Joe Pulizzi Links:Joe Pulizzi's Website: https://www.joepulizzi.com/Joe Pulizzi's books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Z3LMUlLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I got really serious about podcasting in 2020 142 episodes after I began this podcast. I got even more serious with the publication of The Age of Influence, utilizing this podcast to build a community that listens to podcasts. Utilizing podcasting as a form of influencer marketing to help incite word-of-mouth marketing about my book has taken my understanding of the significance that podcasting can have for any business or entrepreneur to a completely different level.By teaching you what I have experienced and learned, I believe you will not look at podcasting the same just as The Age of Influence and this podcast have hopefully helped you look at influencers and influencer marketing in a completely different way.Key Highlights[05:00] Why Podcasts Are Great Medium[05:55] Why I Got More Into Podcasting[06:50] The Reason I Become Passionate About Getting Onto Other People's Podcasts[08:28] How To Get Bloggers Talk About You[10:33] Benefits Of Interviewing Other People In Your Podcast[13:55] Building Relationships With Other Influencers[15:28] What I Learned From Guesting On Other Podcasts[16:38] Finding Your Own Voice Through Guesting[18:15] Benefits Of Collaboration[19:11] Podcasting Helps In Yielding Influence[21:21] 2 Things To Remember[24:50] ConclusionNotable QuotesNumber one, it definitely helps in terms of content creation, I can tap into the minds of great people and have some great podcast episodes, I really wanted a more diverse podcast, I wanted to have more people's ideas included.If you want to get found, there's no better content medium that will accept interviewing you should you pass the vetting process that each podcaster has than podcast and podcasters are influencers.So whenever you engage with an influencer, yes, they're content creators. But in the case of podcasting, chances are they're also business owners. So it opens up a lot of potential for collaboration.If you want to become a better speaker, you need to speak more. And if you wanted to launch your own podcast, you need to know what it's all about, you need to know what to expect what you're going to say.It really gives you a way to not only better find your own voice as a speaker or future podcaster. But it also helps you better deeply understand your subject cuz you're going to get asked a lot of questions, and it's in those questions, you better understand what's on the tips of people's minds, that allows you to develop better and better content.  But once you understand the value of building those relationships, you'd obviously want to do that and it gives you more content, the results of all this. But the more research you do, and the more personalized outreach you do, obviously, the greater that conversion should be.Episodes Mentioned in the Show:166: The Many Ways to Become an Influencer Today [John Lee Dumas Interview]13: Got Good Social Media Marketing Apps? [Ian Cleary of Razor Social Interview] (my first interview!)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Description: What sets successful businesses and professionals apart? One might argue it is all about being able to innovate. Fortunately for our podcast listeners we have a very special guest, Carla Johnson, who has written a few compelling marketing books and will soon release her newest book, RE:Think Innovation. This podcast will be a sneak preview of that book, in which you will learn why:1. People think innovation is only about the products and services they sell, and why they're wrong and missing a huge growth opportunity. 2. There are things that iconic companies with big budgets do that you can learn from and apply right away for your business...if you know how.3. You too can learn how to innovate through a simple, repeatable, scalable formula for how to take inspiration from any brand, experience or situation you have, and turn it into extraordinary outcomes for their business - startups, established Fortune 100 brands, and any organization in between. Key Highlights [01:45] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Carla Johnson[06:34] What Is Innovation?[10:00] The Most Important Aspect To Look At Innovation[15:00] What You Need to Do to Be Truly Innovative?[19:31] Leveraging Innovations of Big Brands[22:25] The Mistake That A Lot of Marketers Make[25:42] The Process and Steps to Innovation[27:39] Pitching Ideas[35:38] Great Way to Start Innovation[38:24] Connect With CarlaNotable QuotesInnovation is about consistently coming up with new, great and reliable ideas. When you look at the companies that you consider as true innovators, one of their characteristics is that they're able to be innovative for a sustained period of time.An important aspect of innovation is that it does impact the business at the end of the day. Now, that doesn't mean it has to result in a new product or new service, it just has to have an impact. And in order to do these things, you need to start out with innovation by clearly identifying what problem is it that you're going to solve?And one of the things in the book that I've written, I talk about a process about how you actually take inspiration for the world around you understand what made that successful, and then transplant that idea into your own work in a way that relates to the work that you do. I've talked about this a little bit like starting to disconnect from all of our digital devices. And really paying attention to the world around us is the foundation of extraordinary innovation, that you can get impatient with a little AI if all you did was continue to look inside your industry and things like that. But all you're doing is rehashing things that are already there.And to truly be innovative, I believe that's what you have to do is you, you have to look at what's going on in the world around you and I talked about like you, you collect all of these dots from the experiences that you have. Links mentioned in the show:Carla Johnson's Website: https://www.carlajohnson.co/RE:Think Innovation by Carla Johnson: https://www.carlajohnson.co/author/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Social networks come (TikTok) and go (Google Plus), and some merely borrow the best features of other social networks to continue innovating (Instagram). The one thing about social media that has NOT changed since I began my career in social media marketing is that LinkedIn continues to be the best place for professional networking and B2B social media marketing.Every year or two "newbie" marketers wake up to the potential that LinkedIn has for your marketing, but since I wrote two books on the subject in 2009 and 2011, I would argue that the potential has always been there. Similar to influencer marketing, marketers have tended to dismiss LinkedIn when they talk about social media marketing options. As part of my role as an educator, I have been creating a free ebook for sometime with best practices for using LinkedIn, and I'm psyched to announce that my newest version is now available for download. Listen to the full episode for an introduction and details on how to get your free copy!This episode is being sponsored by Freshbooks and SocialBee, who have a special campaign for listeners of this podcast. You can see their special offerings by clicking here:Freshbooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbookswinSocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbeewinFor those that want to win a copy of The Age of Influence, please make sure you send me a screenshot of your chosen review to neal@nealschaffer.com along with your mailing address.Key Highlights [02:37] What is Freshbooks and Their Services[05:15] How I Started My Career With LinkedIn[07:04] Why LinkedIn Is Powerful[11:05] LinkedIn Users Statistics[12:39] Demographics of LinkedIn Users[14:48] How Professionals Are Using LinkedIn Today[16:38] Why LinkedIn Is Preferred By Professionals[17:43] Major Ways Businesses and Professionals Can Leverage LinkedIn[19:35] Few Ways Marketers Use LinkedInNotable Quotes.LinkedIn is the only platform that continues to be focused on business and professional networking. It's where professionals go to showcase their personal brand, promote their companies, and in general, do business. While LinkedIn originally grew, without a doubt, as a place to connect with hiring managers, and be found for that dream job, it has become much more than that, and attracts the engagement of professionals looking for an outlet for professional networking.Every employee representing your company that is on LinkedIn increases the chances that your company will indirectly be found. And the more connected your employees are to others, including each other, the easier it will be for those wanting to contact any of your company employees to do so through the LinkedIn profile. And LinkedIn was the number one network for making professional connections for improving the effectiveness of my referral network for building my brand identity for cultivating client prospects for expanding professional knowledge for enhancing current client relationships, for establishing thought leadership in your field.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

While the current coronavirus pandemic has provided us some urgency in which we need to tweak our marketing, the fact of the matter is that anyone in charge of marketing their business always need to pivot amidst the constant change that existed before we first heard the term "COVID-19." I can't think of anyone better to help guide us through this change than Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, who provides:an insight into how c-19 is bringing even more change to marketingsome perspective on marketer's fear of becoming irrelevantwhat are the skillsets marketers need in the near futureThis episode is being sponsored by Freshbooks and SocialBee, who have a special campaign for listeners of this podcast. You can see their special offerings by clicking here:Freshbooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbookswinSocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbeewinFor those that want to win a copy of The Age of Influence, please make sure you send me a screenshot of your chosen review to neal@nealschaffer.com along with your mailing address.Key Highlights [03:49] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ken Fitzpatrick[07:11] Who is Ken and Digital Marketing Institute[08:18] The Changes That COVID19 Brought To Marketing Industry[13:33] Marketing Budget Cut[18:12] The Important Role of Content[19:08] The Biggest Challenge for Marketers[21:13] Investing in Upskillinh and Rescaling[21:37] 5 Top Areas Marketers Should Look At[22:42] The Impact of COVID19 In Customer Experience[25:00] How Digital Marketing Institute Tap Customer Touch Points[31:04] The Key Areas Marketers Should Focus On[35:14] Connect With KenNotable QuotesFor many businesses, who are physically present, a website is the only window that they have to the world now. I should say, the advice I can give you my clients is, there may be a time where you need to sort of stop, for instance, you know, advertising spend that there are some marketing expenses that I realized are being what we would call rationalized.Staying ahead of the game or staying up to date that's really important than in remember research.If you're constantly moving just to the next thing that looks kind of cool and interesting, you're actually gonna end up wasting a lot of time and effort. I would actually say they are just again, given the current climate, then they're getting that broad across social across analytics across SEO, across PPC, the typical sort of traditional things, and influencer marketing. That's the best way to approach it right now. And don't pigeonhole yourself into an area until you feel actions I think people are busy enough getting their head around how to run their business and keep their customers happy in a pure online world, but there is a little bit of back-to-basics going on at the moment deal in terms of revisiting my web. And I think that was the message I was hearing from other peopleLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I often get asked by marketers in transition or recent graduates how they should navigate the job market as a digital marketer. Whether you are looking for more ways to make yourself more marketable (pun intended!), gain more experience, or yield more influence in digital and social media, I believe the solution is one and the same, and the answer to the problem is often staring you right in the face!Links mentioned in the show:The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/Key Highlights [03:21] My Advice to Fresh Graduates Who Want to Enter the Business[04:33] How to Gain Experience?[06:14] How to Build Core Skills[07:38] The Other Way to Build Track Record[09:16] Reaching Out To Local Marketing Agency[10:41] My Instagram Giveaway[11:18] SummaryNotable QuotesI think social media marketing, digital media, influencer marketing a little bit different, but it's easier to be seen, so long as you are trying to build more influence yourself.And what I say to that is there is no better experience than experience right? And what I mean by that is, you need to be able to practice what you learned. You can build case studies, you can take data, and that data you can use when you go into an interview, or if you're trying to pitch a new client. So always starting with your own brand with your own business.But there's nothing like putting this into action. There's nothing like OJT on the job training. You're nothing until you do this. And you have your unique experiences, your unique perspectives, you build your own unique processes. That's when you develop expertise that other companies would want to pay for.That's when you go into an interview. And even though you might not have that work experience that others have, you have a tremendous amount of experience that you can speak to that I guarantee you anyone hiring would be very interested in.So there's a lot of things you can be doing. And when you get those experiences, that's what helps you in fact, if you were to start working for an organization or an agency and they really like what you do, there's a chance that they're going to want to keep working with you.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

In crisis there is opportunity, and for those who understand how media consumption has changed during this coronavirus pandemic, there are distinct opportunities for your business to appear on the radar of more people organically earned media. Learn all about this opportunity straight from the PR expert and thought leader Valerie Christopherson, Founder and CEO of the PR agency Global Results Communications, headquartered right here in my beloved Orange County, California.Our conversation went above and beyond the topic of the current pandemic as we discussed other issues upon us and how we can respond to them, including my sharing my own story of how I was called out on social media and how I will be responding. It is a good reminder that if digital influencers are the new media, with that comes responsibility.Key Highlights[00:39] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Valerie Christopherson[01:05] Who Are Global Results Communications?[03:47] Changes In Earned Media[06:36] The Most In-Demand Type of Media Right Now[08:58] Valerie's Recommendation on the Vehicles Which Companies Can Be Hears[13:41] The True Purpose of Press Release[14:35] Why Press Release Is Still Important?[16:09] Valerie's Advice on Corporate Communications[19:17] What Businesses Can Do To Leverage Pandemic[22:59] The Effects of Black Lives Matter Campaign[27:01] Content In Diversity And Inclusion[30:42] Final Advice[31:01] Connect With ValerieNotable QuotesAs PR professionals, we've gotten back to providing facts and reporters, especially in technology, and in health care to report the facts, what are we seeing? What are we doing? And we saw companies band together, and wanting to tell the story from a factual standpoint, and not from the storybook point of view.It's really important that you think through the different mechanisms because people are on the go so make sure that you have some actionable item to a press release on social media. But right now being realistic. If if you can't read it in three minutes, I'm not sure it's getting read in its entirety, which is why I go back to that key takeaway.  There should be an active even if the action item is simply let me think about that. I would use the press release for what it was meant and designed to be in that would be for news. And news being hard news.And the best thing to do in a moment like that, communicates consistently, calmly, and collectively, on an hour-by-hour basis.Links mentioned in the show:Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Free Ebook: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizing-linkedin-for-businessGlobal Results Communications: https://www.globalresultspr.com/Global Results Communications on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globalresults/Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:145: Free PR: How to Leverage the Media to Amplify Your Brand Exposure and Increase Credibility without Spending Money [Adrian Salamunovic Interview]Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

According to my brand affinity model for influencer marketing, your employees are those that naturally have the most brand affinity for your company because they are an organic part of it. How, though, do you activate your employees as influencers? How does this relate to the concept of employee advocacy? How would this work in regulated industries? And are there any analogies to leveraging employees as influencers that you see in influencer marketing today?Key Highlights[02:48] Engaging Employees As Influencers[03:31] How Influencers Are Categorized?[05:44] Entities That Have Most Brand Affinity[06:43] The Way of Looking At Employee Influence[13:26] Why You Should Treat Your Employees Better[15:25] How To Convert Employees Into Influencers[16:33] Legal Issues Related To Employee Advocacy[21:19] The Importance of Employee Influence Training[23:14] Things That Go Into Employee Influencer Training Program[26:49] Leveraging Employees As Part of Content Creation ProcessNotable Quotes They found that how you treat your employees directly impacts job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee empowerment, supporting your supervisor, and organizational innovation.These what we call employee advocacy programs have turned more into employee engagement programs. In other words, you don't have to share our content. But we want you to engage with it.Because just like influencer marketing, we don't want to treat people like they're programmable ad units. We don't want to treat our employees as if they're automatically going to post anything and everything we share with them to their personal networks on social media.And by providing training, that is putting some skin in the game that if you have employees that love social media, they want to be more active, and by you helping them they'll help you, you can imagine how you're going to get a lot more attention for this program than you were if it's like, hey, share our content.Links mentioned in the show:Case of Taiwanese airlines: http://www.isihome.ir/freearticle/ISIHome.ir-21028.pdfFTC calls out Sony -- and Deutsch L.A. -- for deceptive advertising: https://adage.com/article/news/ftc-sony-deutsch-la-deceived-consumers/296004The Age of Influence: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluenceEpisodes mentioned in or related to this one:165: Influencer Marketing During COVID-19: Still Worth the Investment?123: Enterprise-Wide Employee Advocacy is a Natural Outcome of Social Business [Sociabble Interview]121: Everything You Wanted to Know about Employee Advocacy [PostBeyond Interview]115: How Cathay Pacific Built a Global Employee Advocacy Program107: Creating Employee Advocates with GaggleAMP94: Employee Advocacy, Social Selling, and The Missing Alignment Between Sales and Marketing82: How to Take Your Employee Advocacy to the Next Level: An Interview with GaggleAMP69: The Definitive Guide to Employee AdvocacyLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Instagram has become a critical piece of the puzzle for most businesses because of its popularity and high engagement, but not everybody succeeds on the platform. There's a lot of noise about what you should and shouldn't do on Instagram, and some of that advice is either outdated or might lead your account to getting banned. Let's change that. From the importance of niche branding on Instagram to the critical role that influencers play on Instagram to the unique way in which you should use Instagram for personal branding, Instagram specialists Viv and Tash from Ace the Gram will teach you a thing or two new about the platform that can help improve your Instagram TODAY!Key Highlights [02:11] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Viv Conway, and Tasha Meys[05:57] How Viv and Tash Help Businesses In Acing Instagram and How They Started[08:38] The Things Viv and Tash Would Do Differently Today Than They Might Have Done Five/Six Years Ago[10:57] The Way Viv and Tash See Instagram Algorithm Today[12:41] The Role of Interests in Algorithm[16:42] Instagram As Personal Magazine and Business[19:14] The Top 3 Things People Should Focus Efforts On[21:40] When Do Brands Should Start Using Instagram Influencers?[22:30] Discoverability Technique[28:33] The Power of Personal Branding[29:12] The Mistake Personal Brands Makes[30:21] How To Get Started In Instagram Marketing?[32:10] Types of Content You Can Easily Implement[34:12] The Challenge People Have With Instagram[37:01] Final Thoughts[39:41] Connect With Viv and TashaNotable QuotesThe algorithm Instagram has now is value-based. Instagram does have niches that it puts you into. So the more that you can nail your niche and be really specific and provide value to a specific audience, the more Instagram is going to know who you are, who you want to be shown to. And they'll do that for you. So you do have to be more niche these days.Your niche doesn't have to just be food or fitness, it can be the location you live in, what your target audience is interested in. So you don't have to laser focus on yoga, but you can figure out your niche.I think the first thing is obviously designing your intention. So why you're on Instagram, what you want to get out of it, and then your content strategy will come from that.Anyone who invests and the personal brand and whatever kick career they earn you become a hidden shoulder above the rest of your industry. And just because you are investing in there and getting your own audience and you do then become you get that freedom and flexibility and autonomy to be in charge of your own career.But at the end of the day, like, if you just remember, okay, why am I here? And what do I want to achieve? And then just take action, because action trumps everything.Links mentioned in the show:Ace the Gram WebsiteAce the Gram Podcast 10 Best Social Media Marketing PodcastsLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How do you know what impact everything that you do in digital and social media marketing has on your business? The secret comes down to what I call the PDCA approach to marketing that my agency is named for, but more importantly, it comes down to visualizing your marketing funnel and aligning everything you do with a part of that funnel. After that it comes down to measurement and truly geeking out on the numbers in the reporting that I recommend you do.Listen in for the full details as to how to effectively do this spending little time but having maximum impact on your business!Key Highlights [02:53] The Methodology On Measuring ROI[03:21] The Importance of Having A Report[04:51] PDCA Approach[06:22] All About Funnel[08:04] Next Step of the Funnel: Website[08:51] Email Marketing/Marketing Automation[09:29] Conversion Territory[09:45] Why Email Marketing Is Critical[11:48] Building Benchmarks[12:01] The Easiest Social Media Platform For Organic GrowthNotable QuotesIt bears reminding plan, do check action, it's how you manage experiments. It's how you know what you're going to do, how you do it, you're gonna know what to measure when you do it. And then you know what to optimize. And the measurement goes into report.But generally speaking, you need to be able to rationalize all of your activities. And the first way you do that is if we're going to use social media, we want to build a community. And not only is the size of that community important, and the influences of what we do in social is important as well.Influences can help you at every stage here. They can help you expand your community and social they can help you bring more website traffic. And if you include them in your content marketing, they can help you with generating more email signups.Email marketing is still critical and when you need to get multiple touches with someone because people buy from only companies or they do business only with companies that they know like and trust. You need to be able to get them on your list because that gives you multiple touches, because social media doesn't guarantee your touches, and you can't expect them to come back to your website every day.But hopefully, by listening to this podcast, you'll get a better idea as to what to look for, what to measure, and how to display it both organic and paid, aligning with the funnel, all of your digital and social media marketing activities.But at the end of the day, I really want you to think holistically and to be able to do it yourself and only use a tool when it fits everything you're talking about when all these pieces you can plug in and create the perfect report.Links mentioned in the show:The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence110: How to Generate Leads from Facebook with TabSiteLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

John Lee Dumas is one of the most influential rockstar entrepreneurs out there, and it was an honor to interview him for my podcast. You will learn a lot in this episode on John's story as to how he became an influencer through podcasting but also his recommendation for you if he were to do it all over today.Key Highlights [02:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, John Lee Dumas[05:49] Why John Started Podcast[08:11] Should You Podcast If You Want To Build Influence?[13:27] The Demand Aspect of Podcasting[14:22] The Steps John Took To Become Successful[15:10] Creating Solutions For Your Audience's Struggles[17:33] How To Get Started on Podcasting[18:27] Connect With JohnNotable QuotesI was podcasting four days per month, and doing just a weekly show, which everybody else was doing, it would have taken me forever, if ever to get good, but I was doing it every single day I put in the reps. And I did 2000 episodes in 2000 days, like I bought the work. And you know, it slowly caught on, I stayed consistent. I stayed true to my vision.It is absolutely not too late to start your podcast to build your platform. Because podcasting to me is this, it will always hold a special place in people's days in lives.One of my other favorite things about podcasting, too, is I like to say, podcasts are powerful, because they're free, they're on demand, and they're targeted.I had no products, no services, nothing to offer. When I started. All I said was you know what, I'm going to deliver free, valuable and consistent content. And there's nothing more valuable or free or consistent than a daily podcast that's just as consistent as you can be.Podcast is a great way to build up organic free traffic that knows likes and trusts you this then you know, potentially going to consume your product or your service or invest in that. But if you don't already have a product or a service, do not create one before you start a podcast because you don't know what the heck you're going to create.If you want to get started on podcasting, or just on building your overall brand, you do need to choose a platform like you need to choose a platform where you're going to be sharing free, valuable and consistent content, because that's how you're going to build that audience that knows likes and trust you that you can then ask them what their struggle is, and then create that solution for them.Links mentioned in the show:John Lee Dumas' WebsiteMy interview on Michael Stelzner's Social Media Marketing PodcastMy interview on John Lee Dumas' Entrepreneurs on Fire podcastEpisodes mentioned in or related to this one:164: How to Skyrocket Your Qualified Organic Traffic140: Want to Excel at Social Media Marketing? You Need to be an Active Consumer of Social Media FirstLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

You might be wondering what impact COVID-19 might be having on influencer marketing. After all, you can't fly freely around the world to take pictures of product in exotic locations. But, as you know, travel influencers only represent a small portion of the influencer marketing pie. Here is my advice for businesses trying to navigate the current uncertainty to figure out what role, if any, influencer marketing should have in your marketing strategy. Once again, today's episode, like Episode 161 before it, is based off of a webinar I provided for the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland about marketing in the age of coronavirus.Key Highlights [01:00] Free FreshBooks Conference[05:30] My Take On COVID19 Effect On Influencer Marketing[06:53] Why Influencer Marketing Is Important In Businesses[07:22] The ROI For Influencer Marketing[08:27] Where Media Gets Wrong[10:18] Why I Doubled Down On Content and Relationship[11:20] Another Aspect Of Influencer Relationships[13:39] Influencers As Focus Group[14:34] Where To Find Influencer[16:30] Why You Need To Hire People With Brand Affinity[20:52] SummaryNotable QuotesI think that Coronavirus in some ways is only accelerated more and more people, you know, publishing and consuming more and more content on social media. And the heart of why influencer marketing is important for businesses is all about inciting word of mouth.If you want people to talk about you on social media, and ad is not going to cut it. You really need to incite that word of mouth. And the best way to do that is with other people.Spend that time to foster relationships, because some influencers are also losing money losing business, and you might find that it might be a lot more effective when they're getting fewer and fewer people, contacting them that you will really stick out. And you'll have a chance to build that relationship.So if you're afraid to do advertisements, if you're afraid of saying anything in social media, because of what's going on, that's where you can leverage influencers, who can talk for you through their content.Using tools to find people that are talking about your brand, your customers, your email database, your followers, you know, now's the time to append the data with social media profiles, go digging through and try to find people that are already know like and trust you that are already in your sphere of influenceLinks mentioned in the show:Freshbooks #IMakeaLiving Micro-ConferenceJon Rettinger's YouTube ChannelEpisodes mentioned in or related to this one:161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus Pandemic155: Why Your Business Needs to be More Human Than Ever During the Coronavirus Pandemic154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus PandemicLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

For many businesses, their primary source of digital influence doesn't necessarily come from their social media presence but from their website. How to increase the digital influence of your website in the eyes of Google and generate more qualified organic traffic leading to more business through "free" advertising is what every business owner wants.Today I interview Farzad Rashidi, co-founder of Respona, who is going to give his advice on how to exactly do that. Some of the topics we discussed include:Organic traffic 101: Why it's important for hockey-stick level growthHow to properly research and create quality content and landing pagesHow to get your content ranked for your target keywordsKey Highlights [10:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Farzad Rashidi[12:11] Farzad's Views On Organic Traffic and Growth And Why It's Important[20:38] What You Should Be Doing To Promote Your Content On  The Internet[22:49] Farzad's Advice About Creating Quality Content[23:50] Opportunity Score[27:26] Reverse Skyscraper Technique[29:44] Two Other Campaigns Farzad Do For Blog Posts[35:31] The Process After Blog Post Gets Published[36:17] Things That Bloggers Don't Take Into Account[39:08] Connect With FarzadNotable QuotesIt's all pieces of the puzzle. You need to have your keyword research, finding opportunities, and writing content that people are actually looking for, and it's somewhat relevant to what you do. And you write a very high-quality piece of content, and put it on your website,  promote on social, send it to your newsletter, do all that good stuff, but to actually set it up on a kind of evergreen type of machine that keeps bringing traffic to our site and to that specific blog post, what we call an 80/20 rule.I always talk about how this isn't about a campaign. It's a commitment. And influencer marketing is the same. It's not about a campaign, but it is something that you do as part of your normal process. It's a line item in your marketing.All of that trickles down to getting quality backlinks for individual blog posts. That's what a lot of bloggers actually don't take into account that even though you have a high domain authority, or domain rating, what really determines the success or basically the failure of your of your content is actually your page authority.If you don't have a process, you don't know anything.What I'm trying to say is that you don't need to have a large team to actually get started. You can start small and scale from there.Episodes and Links mentioned in the show:Ep. 160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer Ep. 156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus PandemicEp. 154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus PandemicVismeResponaThe 10 Best Social Media Marketing PodcastsHAROLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

One of the goals of influencer marketing is to incite the word of mouth marketing that organic social alone can't, but there are times that we will still pay to play and employ Paid Social as part of our marketing. How might we be able to use Paid Social as part of our influencer outreach? This is a case study from my own influencer marketing program for the launch of my new book, The Age of Influence, and how I am leveraging one of the unique and most cost-effective forms of Paid Social that many don't know exist or haven't utilized properly: LinkedIn Message Ads.Key Highlights [02:16] Why I Am Passionate About Influencer Marketing[04:04] Paid Social[04:45] How I Leverage Paid Social[07:34] Ad Product On LinkedIn[09:42] How To Create Ad Product On LinkedIn[13:24] My Approach On Making LinkedIn Message Ads[15:27] How I Set Up My LinkedIn Campaign[16:27] My 2 Approaches On Marketing My Book[21:39] Hyper-targeting[25:05] Alternative Outside Facebook Messenger[26:22] ConclusionNotable QuotesWhenever you want to reach a goal. You reach in a paid social, you spend a little money. And inevitably, whatever KPI, whatever metric, whatever outcome you want, it's going to help you reach it.By tapping into these influencers and by having something bigger than my own, it creates something that's more compelling. This is an example of leveraging influencers in terms of this ko content creation.Influencers is not just about paying someone to say something for you. influences. Also, if I get my product in the hands of these people would incite word-of-mouth marketing.The first thing is, if you are going to develop a relationship with someone on LinkedIn, knowing the power that it has, wouldn't you want to give something of value to begin that relationship?So if you want to make these LinkedIn message ads work for you, you need to think of the person receiving it as an influencer. And you need to find a way to add value to them without being able to ask them how you can add value to them.And that's where LinkedIn has its value in all this is that if we're looking for people with titles, that is the premier place to look. And if you think that advertising on LinkedIn has to be expensive, you need to understand how this model of LinkedIn messaging works.Links mentioned in the show:My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/The Age of Influence on Amazon: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluenceEpisodes mentioned in the show:157: Influencer Marketing before the Internet: A Personal Case Study to Help Guide You Towards Success Today147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look (AJ Wilcox Interview)Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

You've probably heard the advice that if you want to become an influencer, you need to niche down. This podcast is going to be all about why the riches are in the inches and what you can do to take advantage of that. I interview the CEO and Founder of MiloTree, Jillian Tohber Leslie, and we discuss:Why drilling down in your niche can help you explode your businessWhy using Instagram and Facebook Groups is GOLD for selling to your audienceThe importance of teaching your audience to buy from youKey Highlights [00:58] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jillian Tohber Leslie[05:45] What Is Milo Tree App?[07:20] High-Quality Follower Vs Low-Quality Follower[10:50] What Are Niche and Niching Down?[21:58] Jillian's Advice On How To Be Successful On Facebook And Instagram[28:35] DM Me Vs Linking[33:11] Connect With Jillian[34:51] Final Advice[36:16] SummaryNotable QuotesWe think that it's an awesome way to get people to stay to get to know you to build that relationship.The guests that are the most successful, that I interview are the ones that have figured out what their niche is, who their audience is, and how best to serve them.And if you can create a relationship with that person and know what their problems are, know what they're struggling with, know what they're thinking about. That's the way to serve them. And that's the way to sell to them, whether it be a product or a service. So I would keep your stories related to your content, but a little more raw, a little more with a little more personality, not as stylized, like, let people in in your stories.If you don't have a passion for what you do, it's not going to last period. The niches are only relevant when it's a niche that's meaningful to you.People want to be led. I think it's an evolutionary thing. And therefore people want to and it sounds weird, be told what to do.It is a slow build It is all about showing up and being consistent, and it will slowly grow. it's not an overnight thing. It's about patience. And it's about doing the work. And I wish there were a magic bullet. But the truth is, there isn't. It's really you and your, your commitment to building your business.No shortcuts here, people, it takes time to build relationships with people, right. And especially when it's online, it may even take more time. But by showing up and being consistent, you can actually shorten that. Links mentioned in the show:Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/MiloTree: https://milotree.com/Catch My Party: https://www.catchmyparty.com/Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

1 of the 6 pillars of digital marketing is email marketing, but it's often the one easy to forget as most talk about more trendy topics such as social media marketing, content marketing, or influence marketing (I'm partly to blame!). Based off of webinars I provided for both the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland as well as the email marketing software company GetResponse, learn all you wanted to know to get you inspired to do more with email marketing and lead magnets.Key Highlights [03:54] The 6 Things You Can Do In Digital Marketing[07:36] The Value of Email Marketing[09:36] How To get Repeated Touches[11:05] Active Email Account Statistics[12:18] Email Marketing ROI[15:12] How To Grow Email List?[16:47] Essential Components of A Lead Magnet[17:35] Mistake Brand Do In Email Marketing[19:29] Other Ideas For Lead Magnets[23:10] Different Approaches To Grow Your Email ListNotable QuotesThe value of email marketing today, it is borrowed land, we don't own it. And at the end of the day, we want people on our island, our websites. That's where the magic happens. That's where we communicate with people the way we want, any way we want with our branding. And that's where we literally sell.Email provides the best way to repeatedly touch, it also helps you control the research phase of the buying process. if you are sending them emails on a regular basis that they're engaging with, you are influencing their purchasing decision through those emails.We have lots of people on social media, we want to get them to our website when they come to our website, we want to continue that relationship when they leave the website. And the only way to do that it's going to be through email. That's why I have this concept of a weekly newsletter, but also knowing dependent on how people opted in how much they like know and trust me, I keep that monthly option for those that might not know me as deeply as those like leads that I might get from partners versus leads die directly again, if that makes sense.  In fact, email marketing may be the cheapest, most effective way to scale your Digital Influence when you think of it that way.Links mentioned in the show:My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/Email Marketing StatisticsRecommended Email Marketing SoftwareEpisodes mentioned in the show160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview] - for more advice on SEO159: An Introduction to The Age of Influence and Resetting Your Perspective on Digital Influence - where I read through the introduction of The Age of InfluenceLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What is the connection, and even the similarities, that marketers who want to improve at both SEO as well as social media need to have? Join me in this interview with one of the world's leading experts, Cyrus Shepard, SEO Advisor for MOZ, as we discuss:Why SEOs and Social Marketers both need to have a wide breadth of skills for writing across social pages, metadata and moreThe way in which aligning SEO and Social skills can lead to more backlinks, improved engagement signals, and more owned SERP real estate for branded queriesHow enhanced social media efforts can lead to higher search demandDigital influence isn't just about influence on social networks. It includes influence you hold in the search engines! That's why this conversation was so exciting and stimulating for me, so I'm sure it will be worth your time.In case you are new to the podcast, my new book The Age of Influence can be bought at any major bookseller worldwide. Here's a link to the Amazon USA page for it: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluenceKey Highlights [01:41] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Cyprus Shepard[06:29] Skills We Should Focus On In This Age of Coronavirus[08:26]  Advice On Social Signals[11:07] Recommendation On Repurposing Content[12:28] How to Find and to Write With Keywords[15:33] Aligning SEO To Enhance Social Media Efforts and Higher Search Demand[20:31] External Linking Out Strategy[23:31] How To Balance Putting External Links And Keeping Readers On The Page Longer[25:30] Moz Beginners Guide To SEO[27:51] Connect With Cyprus[28:07] Final AdviceNotable QuotesMy advice to people is that you find the keywords that people are searching for. My recommendation is that you include those in your title tag for your content. But when you're when you're writing your social media posts, the headlines, there can be your call to actions can be something different, something exciting, something to get people to share the content, as long as it's in the title of your actual page.I encourage people to really look at their internal linking strategy first, and heavily interlink with varying anchor text, and advanced IP, when you're when you do your keyword research that I mentioned earlier, look at all the keyword variations that people are using to search and vary your anchor text a lot, because if you're a small medium site, if you just link with the same anchor text over and over again to yourself, Google is going to see that as over optimization, and you can kill your ranking.The links that are higher in your page, count more than links that are lower on your page. So when you do, I would highly prioritize the links higher in your content to yourself, because you're going to pass more link equity.You can try try out the tools and laws but mostly show up post those things. Look and see see how you're showing up in Google search results when you search for your brand. And always think about how can I through social media?Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Why does influencer marketing and collaborating with influencers regardless of industry have such incredible promise for businesses now and well into the future, even during this coronavirus pandemic? This episodes focuses on why I wrote my recent book, The Age of Influence, by reading you the actual Introduction from the published copy. By hearing my perspective through this episode, the way you look at digital influencer will forever be changed - for the better!The Age of Influence can be bought at any major bookseller worldwide. There is a link to the Amazon USA page for it: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluenceThanks for listening and sharing this podcast with your friends, checking out my Age of Influence book, and subscribing and reviewing on whichever app you use to listen to this podcast!Key Highlights [00:58] The History Of The Books I Have Written[03:00] Introduction To The Age Of Influence Book[03:40] Why I Wrote The Age Of Influence[04:02] Mistakes Often Made By Brands[06:37] How The Ways Of Communication Have Changed[08:11] Leveraging Other Social Media Users[09:07] The Importance of Engaging and Creating Relationships[11:06] How To Incite Word-Of-Mouth Marketing[12:00] 2 Myths About What Brands Think Consumers Want[14:22] Harnessing True People Power[16:48] Age Of Influence Table Of Content[18:30] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesThe constantly changing landscape of social media means that despite all the money poured into platforms for advertising, campaigns are finding increasingly less traction in organic ways. Influencer Marketing is not about paying someone else to take selfies and put them online. It is fundamentally about engagement and communication. It is about building relationships.My voice here is on engaging the voices of influencers, leveraging the other as I call it, to spread your message. It's investing what power you have to move outside and insight word of mouth marketing, so that other voices will talk about your business. Social media represents the convergence of information and communication.All social media voices are equal, but some are more equal than others. Engaging with those whose voices are being heard is essential to spreading your message online. Rising above the digital noise and creating meaningful relationships.When launching a startup, sidestepping those gatekeepers, and connecting directly with your consumers has a much stronger benefit. Many businesses started out with word-of-mouth marketing without really knowing it. happy and successful customers told their friends who told their friends and so on.When done right harnessing employees ideas for content creation, and encouraging them to be more active on social media as part of an employer advocacy program, which treats them truly as influencers can be powerful.Influencer marketing is a shift in communicating and interacting with your customers and audience. It's also able to deliver results far beyond those of traditional retLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This episode features an interview with Kate Bradley Chernis, Co-Founder and CEO of the content marketing tool Lately, which helps you automatically turn your content into dozens of social media posts in one click.  Some of the topics we cover include:Why writing is the most important skill in your toolkit as a marketer or a salespersonHow any marketing person or tool can't help you if you start out with crap: "you can't polish a turd"How AI can help your content creation processHow humans and Artificial Intelligence can work togetherThanks for listening, checking out my Age of Influence book, and subscribing and reviewing on whichever app you use to listen to this podcast!Key Highlights [01:43] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Kate Bradley Chernis[06:56] What Is LatelyAI?[08:44] What LatelyAI Does[10:52] Why Writing Is The Most Important Toolkit?[16:29] One Of The Problems People Have In Writing Marketing And Sales[19:43] How AI Help Fix Potential Writing Issues[23:59] You Need To Tweet Like A DJ[25:40] How AI Content Creation Is Time To Throw THe Lead Generation Playbook[28:36] 2 Best Examples Of How TO Better Access To Your Customers[33:04] How AIs Can Make Our Jobs Easier[37:49] Connect With Kate[38:53] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesReally just taking a second to think about what you're writing, and then understand who you're writing it to.That's what storytelling is really about. It's about like making sure that somebody cares at all what you're saying. And the way to get them to care is to be human, and to inject that personality and persona in it. And a great way to do that is to think about how things look on the page.If you really want to resonate with your audience, that that tone of voice is critical. But just making sure that your writing is is powerful, in a way that conveys the message, the way that you want it to be conveyed is something that you really can't take for granted.Your network is always your most important thing.So with marketing, especially marketing is a human affair. It's very emotional, you you buy something from me, because you like me, or you like my product, you have this emotional reaction to it, right? And robots can't replicate that.People remember you when you make that personal connection and often that's based on mutual personal experiences and if you don't bring those things out in your content, this is something that AI cannot teach you right?So leverage as much as you can about you as a person or about the people inside your brand. and you're going to be much better for that. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today is a very special episode dedicated to a very special personal, my father, who recently passed away at the age of 93. By sharing his life story, not only will you better understand my DNA as an educator and entrepreneur, but you will learn how to take the same holistic approach like I do to influencer marketing so that you can find influential collaborators and distributors that can help you scale your business to the next level.Key Highlights [01:30] The Concept of Influencer Marketing Before The Internet[02:52] My Father's Life[03:52] My Father's Teaching Career[05:05] How Frank Schaffer Was Launched[07:33] We All Develop Differently[08:32] Creating Products That Serves NeedsNotable QuotesSo I know that a lot of you have gone through hard times as well. My message for you is really before I move on to my educational piece for this podcast, is to hug your loved ones, FaceTime your parents think positive thoughts, and take advantage of every day we have on this earth.Reminds me of whether it's social media marketing or digital marketing or influencer marketing. You know, we as professionals, as businesses, as entrepreneurs, as small business owners, we all develop differently based on our experience, those that are, have been doing this for a while, develop quicker, those that are new readers, or that are new, are going to develop slower. But the fact of the matter is that you're all going to develop. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This is the 3rd in a series of episodes helping you make sense of what the coronavirus pandemic means to your business. This episode will be focused on the marketing aspect of your business. Is it OK to publish content on social media now? Is it OK to advertise? What should I be posting about? What marketing activities should and shouldn't we be doing? These questions will all be addressed in hopes of inciting you to action to show up and help your own community by pivoting your marketing in these continued uncertain times.As mentioned in the podcast, take a screenshot of your online review for The Age of Influence and send it to neal@nealschaffer.com to schedule your 15-minute consultation.Stay at home and stay safe everyone!Key Highlights [02:33] TalkWalker Webinar[05:30] How Can Your Business Do To Help People[07:15] Corporate Social Responsibility[08:23] Second Way Your Business Can Help People[09:19] Digitzing Your Product And Service[09:45] What If You Don't Have A Digital Product Or Service?[12:01] Another Way of Leveraging Influencers In Time Of COVID19[12:46] Time To Optimize Your Marketing Infrastructure[13:41] Deepening Relationship With InfluencersNotable QoutesWhat is it that your company can do to help and maybe if you can't do that, you can help people in your community, you can contact a local hospital, and see how you can help or people that need food, how you might be able to help them, there is help that any one of us can provide.People remember the good and the bad, and people will remember those that helped them during this pandemic, become one of those entities. So your community needs you more than ever, and we are truly all in this together.Part of Corporate Social Responsibility is tapping into your responsibility as an enterprise to help others. And if you haven't done this before, this is really a great time to start.But part of what they're doing in that engagement is not just the entertainment and being together with them, and providing them that human touch. So that they are remembered, obviously, but also, they're providing them customer education.If you're looking at beginning influencer marketing, or doing more influencer marketing, now is the time to spend more time with influencer identification, whether it's you're doing it for the first time, or you want to find new influencers, as well as it's great time to deepen relationships with influencers.Use this time wisely. Especially not just that market infrastructure, but in developing relationships, relationships with the public, around you, your community, your customers, and with those influencers that you plan on investing more in once we get out of this pandemic.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today's episode is a special interview I had with a special friend, Mark Schaefer. Mark is one the true few thought leaders in the marketing space, whose most recent book Marketing Rebellion talks about how the most human companies will win in the marketing of tomorrow. While we planned to talk about a lot of issues, as you can imagine the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic weighed over our conversation. However, this current pandemic only served as a poignant reminder for Mark's message, which now has more urgency to it because of the situation we are in today. You can find at Mark at BusinessesGrow and also on social media on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. After listening to the podcast, I do hope you'll reach out to him.On another note, as mentioned in the podcast, take a screenshot of your online review for The Age of Influence and send it to neal@nealschaffer.com to schedule your 15-minute consultation.Stay at home and stay safe everyone!Key Highlights [02:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mark Schaefer[07:26] Pivoting Marketing To Nurture People's Hierarchy Of Needs[18:34] How Big Companies Have Pivoted Under Circumstances Like Pandemic[23:06] Now Is The Best Opportunity To Enable Strong Loyaly[25:25] The Importance Of Paying Attention[27:08] The Three Things An Entrepreneur Can Learn From The Pandemic[30:22] Connect With MarkNotable QuotesI think a lot of our messages need to go to the bottom of the pyramid, right, we need to connect with people where they are in this moment, and they're afraid, and they might be panicky, they might have lost a job. They're grieving, they're experiencing loss.One of the lessons that we're learning is, is we always need to be serving and helping and asking those questions. And maybe, for a lot of marketers who have never done that it's going to be I'm not going to say a positive thing, because we're in a crisis. But these are good skills to learn if people haven't done them, and that should remain with them for the rest of their life.And a lot of that goes on with our marketing today, where we say we're being human. But it's a formula, or it's legally approved. There's no compassion. There's no vulnerability, there's no human voice.This is an opportunity to work on your infrastructure and all those things that you've you know, that you've been, you've been, you know, leaving to another time, but it's also an opportunity to help others to help your customers and your partners, get to the other side, that's the goal right now, conserve cash pivot, do what you need to do to be relevant, and fight and get to the other side. Because we will get to the other side, it's going to be different, but you know, it's gonna come back.Life is about choices. What choice are you going to make and with everything you do, you're making a choice. So make the right choices.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today's episode is a special edition broadcast because so many clients and others have asked what our businesses should do in the midst of the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. I want to offer my own perspectives not because I am an expert per se in managing pandemics (I don't know of any marketers who are!), but because you need to listen to a lot of different perspectives to navigate the best path forward, and I want to be one of the voices that you tune into. It is this same concept that I bring up as advice in this episode. Stay positive and stay safe!As mentioned in the podcast, take a screenshot of your online review for The Age of Influence and send it to neal@nealschaffer.com to schedule your 15-minute consultation.Key Highlights [02:07] My Advice On How COVID19 Affect Marketing[04:17] Stay Positive[04:50] Pivot After A Crisis[06:40] Now Is The Best Time To Induce Digital Products and Services[07:56] Marketing Always Needs Pivoting[09:44] Bids For Ads[10:22] Strengthening Marketing InfrastructureNotable QuotesThe most important advice I can give you is that nobody is an expert on this and nobody knows. This is brand new.I do think that if we want to control this, that is really the only thing we can control. And understand that whenever we go outside and interact with someone or get close to someone, we are just increasing the risk that we or our loved ones are going to get that disease with every social instance.We can control our positivity. And when we're positive, we see opportunities that we're not going to see if we're negative. So that being said, when we get through this, things will be different.So if you don't have a digital product or service, now is a great time to create one, your revenue may be going way down, get that digital product or service up as soon as possible.It's another pivot that you need to do. But you need to look for opportunities to serve your audience and help them.If you can ship product or if you do have digital products and services, this might be an opportunity so long as you can tap into the needs and serve your audience and what they're going through right now.You need to continue to show up for your audience.There's no easy way forward, we cannot control what we cannot control, we can control what we can control. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Instagram requires a very different strategy compared to other social networks in order to be successful. I had the pleasure of interviewing Christy Laurence, CEO and Founder of the leading Instagram scheduling app Plann, to discuss all things Instagram and how you can best create and implement an Instagram strategy to grow your brand. Some of the things we discussed include:- Instagram content strategy- the importance of the grid- hashtags- posting frequency- the value of Instagram analytics- and more!Key Highlights [01:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Christy Laurence[04:14] How Plann Started[09:18] What Is Plann?[10:16] Color Palette Analysis[11:49] Other Killer Features of Plann[16:18] Best Time Of The Day To Post On Instagram[18:16] Hashtag Functionality[21:14] The Concept Of Grid[25:26] Are Preset Filters Needed To Be Successful On Instagram?[27:12] Long Caption VS Short Caption[28:03] Swipe Up In Instagram Story Or Dm Me For Link?[29:59] Where Should You Put Hashtags?[32:51] Christy's Advice On Posting Consistency and Frequency[34:34] Connect With ChristyNotable QuotesI really understood the need of the platform. And that's why I developed something that I knew would really help people understanding why they're on the platform and the purpose and having being informed about why they're making decisions.My whole purpose is to help more people be successful. And if I can show them what's not working and is working, then I can direct more people in the right way.If you can, inside plan, you can learn when your audience is most online, and most engaged. So therefore, you can make better decisions about when to get in front of them, instead of having to post hundreds of content and just hoping that works.Having that data and doing reporting and checking it out is super crucial to understanding how to optimize and get better.But Instagram is not Snapchat. So if you're posting, you know, too much of your cat or too much of your food, then they go actually, this isn't for me anymore. So again, it's it's an extension of your brand extension of your story and extension on your business. So we have to be intentional.For me, it comes down to knowing your audience.And Instagrams, it's always changing. There's no reason you can't either, but it's about understanding your people reading your analytics and making really educated decisions.Additional links:The Age of Influence - my new bookMaximize Your Social Influence community on FacebookPlannLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today I want to share with you a real-life example of how I am rationalizing my client's marketing spend and the different options we are considering for B2B influencer marketing. If you are looking to create fans for your business, why wouldn't you reach out to influencers in your industry and try to recruit them through the spirit of collaboration like I teach in The Age of Influence? This episode will help you understand how to find B2B influencers and all of the different ways in which you could collaborate with them.Additional links:The Age of Influence - my new bookRespona - blogger outreach platformGroupHigh - blogger outreach platformSuperfans - book by Pat FlynnMaximize Your Social Influence community on FacebookKey Highlights [03:34] How To Get More People Sign Up To Your Product?[04:03] Customers Becoming Influencers[05:20] The Essential Need For Lead Magnet[07:10] Why Social Media Channels Are Important For B2B[09:14] How To Find Influencers For Your B2B Company[11:39] How To Engage With Influencers?[13:23] Approaching Influencers Individually[14:40] How TO Include Influencers In Creating Lead Magnets[15:29] Influx Of Virtual Summits[17:47] Playing Around With Different Content Mediums[19:20] What Is The Greatest Way To Expand Your Podcast?[23:55] My Facebook Community GroupNotable QuotesIn marketing, we talk about the essential need for lead magnets. And the reason why as people are not going to sign up to your email list, because they love getting emails, right, they're going to sign up. And because they are receiving something in exchange for signing up, and if your emails, communications are good, and not too spammy, they may hang on and receive your marketing communication through an email medium.It's not just about the influence of people, or those who want to become or are influencers, but also about how businesses can really through becoming more influential digitally and socially, yield more business.Creating something that people might be able to read or engage with, that would generate further demand and interest in their product and build that know, like trust factor.And I argued that public relations professionals should be translating their skills to influencer relations, because it's not a spray and pray one of many approach with influencer marketing, it is a one to one approach.What I've learned from podfest is one of the greatest ways in which to expand your podcast audience is to go on other podcasts.That's another way of grabbing the market before your competitor, but also using it as a way to reach out to influencers and say, Hey, here's another option, we also have a podcast, just a 30 minute interview. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you looking to do more with video in social media? Join me for this interview with video marketing expert Jayson Duncan as we discuss how can businesses get into a groove of creating video on a regular basis, how to get people to watch your videos on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, how to create successful video ads, and more! Learn more about Jayson and his company Miller Farm Media here: https://millerfarmmedia.com/If you want more information on the Age of Influence pre-order campaign - which expires March 16, 2020 at 11:59 P.M. Pacific time, please go to https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/Finally, please join our "new" community on Facebook: Maximize Your Social Influence Facebook GroupKey Highlights [01:21] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jayson Duncan[07:30] Aligning Video With Sales[12:20] How To Get Into The Groove Of Creating Videos[18:12] Why Content Batching Is Powerful[20:13] One Of The Steps That Brands Forget[23:54] How To Get People to Watch Your Videos?[25:22] Different Types Of Content Work On Different Platforms[26:23] The Importance Of Captions[27:51] The Sweet Spot In Video Length[32:34] Jayson's Insights On Video Ads[39:16] How To Create Successful Video Ad?[41:37] Measuring ROI For Video Ad[43:11] Jayson's Final Advice[46:16] Connect With Jayson[48:32] SummaryNotable QuotesEveryone's in business because they provide a service that is valuable to the marketplace. And if you don't provide a service that's value the marketplace, you soon go out of business.So to get weekly video, the first thing to do is be human. That's the element we all have some people get lost in.I don't care who you work with, but find a video marketer, and have a monthly phone call with him or whatever you need for your campaign, make sure that you're doing the things that are really going to work and they can help guide your team.Look for that on YouTube. Building influencers internally and you talked about connecting this to your sales, your sales team, make those salespeople your influencer. So start with with a face that people can recognize and in a location they can recognize. It all goes back to your funnel. So knowing where your buyer is in the in the journey, knowing your audiences in a journey with you as a content creator, as a brand.It's the same thing with social, the longer you stay and consume content on that platform, right, not clicking a link going somewhere else. But the longer you're there, the more valuable you are.So making it unstoppable. That's the first step if you can't get them to stop. From there, you got three seconds. So you gotta you gotta you really make that moment important for them so you can get another five to 10 seconds or whatever that number is.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As you try to build more digital influence, you might start wondering when and how to begin monetizing your efforts. This episode provides you a number of different scenarios for both the different triggers which might indicate why you should begin to ask for compensation as well as calculating what sort of remuneration you should begin to ask for. This episode also includes advice for marketers who want to build better relationships with influencers.Find out more about my upcoming book and the pre-order campaign here: https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/Key Highlights[03:36] When To Monetize Your Influence?[07:21] Recognizing When You Have Begun Yielding Influence[08:32] Signals On When The Time You Should Start Monetizing Your Influence[11:51] Where To Begin[12:45] Figuring Out Good Hourly Rate[14:37] Making Sure You Get Something Back[15:54] The Only Way To Scale In Monetizing InfluenceNotable QuotesWhen you begin to get asked things from people, from companies from organizations, what happens is someone sees value in your expertise, your experience, your knowledge, and they contact you.However, small amount of money you begin with, you need to be it provides you the greatest effort to really monetize your influence, that's really the easiest way to put it.Well, what is the value of that? What is the value of your time? And what is the value of publishing a piece of content on your website, or for your opinion.But whatever it is, make sure you are getting in kind value for that.But I don't want to be doing anything that's less than that, because it's just not worth my time. And this is something that you're going to have to figure out.When we talk about monetizing influence, we're basically asking something in return for something.And I want you to get in the habit of whenever someone hasn't asked for you, as someone who has used an influence, you haven't asked for them. And that is going to help you best monetize your influence.Think about ways in which you can better monetize what you're doing. And I think those of us that have been doing this a while already have this mindset, if you don't have the mindset, now is the time to get the mindset. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Did you know that my new book on influencer marketing, The Age of Influence, began as a test market on a crowdsourcing platform for authors called Publishizer? It's true! You can even see my original proposal page here: https://publishizer.com/the-business-of-influence/. Today's podcast is looking at the personal side of influence for those that want to yield more influence by becoming a published author. If it wasn't for Lee, my new book wouldn't have been written, so I hope today's episode inspires YOU! For those interested in my pre-order campaign for The Age of Influence, make sure you buy a copy of the book from this link and then send a copy of your receipt to neal@nealschaffer before 11:59 P.M. Pacific on March 16. You can find out more about the book and pre-order campaign here: https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/The Age of Influence page on Amazon is here: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluenceKey Highlights [01:08] Introduction Of Podcast Guest, Lee Constantine[05:57] What Is Publishizer?[07:19] Reasons Why A Professional Should Write A Book[11:42] How Authors Yield Influence Through Books[18:31] The Biggest Things To Remember When Writing A Book[27:00] Marketing Your Book[31:19] The 2 Most Important Pieces Outside Social[36:56] How To Navigate Publication Process[38:13] How Publishizer Fit Into Publication Process[41:40] The Average Amount Of Books Sold By Self-Published Authors[42:54] Different Types Of Publishing Options[48:15] Final Thoughts[54:38] Connect With LeeNotable QuotesA book really helps you spread your message. I mean, as a professional that wants to become an experts, or you're becoming an experts, experts typically have unique methodologies and formulas are really unique insights that allow them and others to achieve success. So putting this in book form, is really credible medium to spread that message further.All this stuff is important because it's indicators or indicators, when referring to a book, it's indicators that you can talk to consumers and your followers in a way that gets them to engage with you and possibly sell your book later on.For every aspiring author, you need to really go out there and engage and build that community become an influencer in your industry.But social media isn't always the strongest platform to tell you. But it's just an indicator that you can develop relationships to sell that book to in another format, like maybe an email or through a personal message. Don't discount any type of publishing deal. Anytime you can get someone to support your book, partner with you get this thing out there in a way that you necessarily can't do on your own. It's really big added value in there.Writing a book is muscle memory, building that part from that community's muscle memory requires a daily commitment, you need to put together a playbook. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Whether you work at a company with staff or you are an entrepreneur, you need to scale so that you can focus on your business and have other experts around you do what they are good at. This includes your digital and social media marketing work. If digital influence is yielded from content creation, you need to stay focused on your content and IP and let others help you do things that are not primary business drivers. I want to share with you what I have done to help scale my own marketing operations and my advice for you.This podcast episode is a preview of one of the two free webinars I will be doing for those that pre-order my new book The Age of Influence on Amazon. For instructions on how to apply to access, please listen to Episode 144 or read my blog post here.Key Highlights [03:28] The Only Way To Scale[04:12] Integral Part Of Your Marketing Infrastructure[06:22] How To Find Experts[08:20] Be A Better Scaler[08:41] The Things You Can Outsource[11:03] SummaryNotable QuotesAs an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, as a marketer, you need to stay focused on your key tasks, on your key expertise on your key, what you would call an expert zone.The only way for us to scale is to delegate is to have other people do work on our behalf, there really is no other way. Obviously, you can look at everything you're doing. Pick the top three things, stop doing the other things.You can't do everything. You're, you're basically the sum of everybody around you. And you want to hire people that are smarter than you if you want your business to grow.You need to focus on the right things if you want to drive the right revenue. And in order to do that you need to scale and often with marketing, specifically digital and social media marketing, we need to find people that can do these things for you. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Everybody talks about Facebook and Instagram Ads, but what about LinkedIn Ads? If you are targeting a lucrative demographic or are a B2B company, LinkedIn should be one of the focus points of your marketing. Join me in this interview with one of the world's foremost experts on LinkedIn Ads, AJ Wilcox, as he teaches you all of the different options you have and how to make the most of them for effective advertising on LinkedIn.For those of you interested in my Amazon pre-order campaign for The Age of Influence, please purchase a paperback copy here and then send me an email of your receipt to neal@nealschaffer.com to be invited to my two exclusive live webinars. Listen to episode 144 for further details!Key Highlights [00:38] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Aj Wilcox[03:07] How AJ Started Doing LinkedIn Ads[05:15] Aj's Advice For Beginners[09:37] The Ideal Threshold For Impressions[10:32] The Concept of Lifetime Batting Average With LinkedIn Ads[12:31] Unique LinkedIn Ads Features[14:33] Different LinkedIn Ad Products[17:13] What Is A Sponsored Content?[17:52] Lead Gen Form VS AV Testing[20:07] LinkedIn Ads Best Practices[23:31] The Visual Aspect Of LinkedIn Ads[25:40] Connect With Aj[26:37] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesIf you're going to be paying that much for traffic, it means you've got to make sure that your funnel is pretty tight, your sales processes are good, and you know how to follow up with them. And you have a high enough lifetime value after a deal closes, that you can basically pay for those expensive clicks along the way.Build that strong history into your campaigns, don't just run one campaign for a month, and pause it and then start a new one, because you won't be building up history that will work in your favor in the future.If your goal is to, is to generate conversations with highly valuable people, send them to a landing page where you're going to make the strongest impression and get to know them. But if all you want is to get as many email addresses as possible from a target market, so that they can go into your database and be nurtured then lead gen forms make a lot of sense.My recommendation is to target pretty tightly, you're going to be paying a lot of money for these clicks. So definitely make sure it's exactly the right people that you would want in your funnel in your sales process.Be really smart about how you're tiptoeing into the platform, don't take Lincoln's recommended bids, don't don't leave the box checked for audience expansion, what you want to do flip to maximum cost per click bidding, and bid low and just see what happens.When you're on LinkedIn, you have a mission in mind, you are going to do something. And so if you do the thing that you do on Facebook, which is like, all right, big, long posts and tell a story, that stuff just does not work on LinkedIn, you need to be really short and concise. So for that textual component, make sure you get right to the point, you're telling someone, this is what you need.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I have published 3 other episodes about Pinterest marketing, but because Pinterest continues to deliver results for me, I wanted to share you with my latest thoughts on the platform for those that have yet to take Pinterest seriously. Pinterest is a very different social network, but for those business and influencers that are content creators, Pinterest just might be the gold mine you have been searching for in social media. For those of you interested in my Amazon pre-order campaign for The Age of Influence, please purchase a paperback copy here and then send me an email of your receipt to neal@nealschaffer.com to be invited to my two exclusive webinars. Listen to episode 144 for further details!Key Highlights [02:08] Why Pinterest Is A Very Special Place In Social Media[04:14] Why Choose Pinterest?[06:06] DM Me Vs Swipe Up[07:00] Pinterest Statistics[08:32] Why Pinterest Is Great For B2C E-commerce[11:03] Pinterest Vs Other Social Platforms In Terms Of Traffic[12:05] What Are Rich Pins?[12:28] Maximizing Pinterest Search Tool[13:40] What Type Of Content Works On Pinterest?[16:13] The Concept Of Content Buckets[17:17] How Pinterest Board Works[19:59] The Recommended Pin Size[20:50] Be Consistent In Pinterest[21:09] Curating Content[22:39] Best Tool For Pinterest[23:32] Pinterest Smart Queue Functionality[25:58] SummaryNotable QuotesEvery social network is very different.I think that if you haven't been on Pinterest as a discovery engine, this is where you need to start, create an account, create a business account. And there's there are reasons to have a business account. But the first thing is, it gets your account verified. And you get access to something called Rich pins, which is sort of structured markup on your site. I do believe that your name is your best brand. It stays with you forever. And as an influencer, it may be more memorable than something generic debatable as to what influences what to do if they want to have a brand.  If you want to be successful on Pinterest, you need to be looking at what's working. And you're going to find a few things. You don't have to put all your content there. But you need to have content. More importantly, you need content because every pin is a bookmark.That is the simplest thing you can do when you pin it, you want to make sure the title the description, actually match the board, which matches your description. And you ideally want to do this a few times a day.Pinterest can be extremely powerful whether you want to reach out to influencers that are already generating a lot of traffic that might be able to generate traffic for your brand. Or if you're an influencer brands always want to see not just the likes and the comments, but they want to see the actual clicks. And Pinterest I think is a great supplement for any lifestyle influencer really any influencer out there. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Join me for an interview with Adrian Salamunovic, Founder of Earned.co and Author of FREE PR, where we discuss all of the free things you can do to get media exposure. This includes learning how to differentiate yourself, identifying the right media targets and channels, and how to amplify and leverage the media you get after it's published by using social media and paid social. If you want to take advantage of the pre-publishing campaign for my book The Age of Influence on Amazon, make sure you buy the book here and then send me a receipt of your pre-purchase before March 17 to neal@nealschaffer.com Thanks!Key Highlights[02:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Adrian Salamunovic[06:38] Book To Read To Learn About Differentiating Yourself[07:28] What Earned.co Does[09:49] Taking Pitch And Translating It Into Online ACtivities[12:08] Working On The Channels And Content[16:20] Why Personalization Is Important[21:41] Adrian's Advice On Sending Messages Through Instagram And Twitter[23:07] Timeliness Is Everything[26:27] The Concept Of Adding Value[28:40] What To Do If You Don't Know Your Ideal Targets[29:34] Performing Micro Surveys[31:30] Leveraging Google Analytics[34:35] Hack On How To Organically Get Hits[39:08] The Deal Of Hiring PR Agencies[45:13] Three Tiers On Paid Media[50:06] Adrian's Book[53:09] Connect With AdrianNotable QuotesI think that having a unique value proposition is probably the most important foundational thing you can do as a business founder, right from the start.There's riches in niches as the saying goes. And we really like businesses that have niches. And I think one of the most powerful things about having a niche is you're not trying to boil the ocean, right? You know exactly who you're going after.What I tell people to do is to think that we work for the media, not the other way around. y job is to be available to them when they need me to be available to help bring value to their audience to help them create a great story or narrative. And if you go in with that attitude of servitude, you're going to get so much more from the media over and over again.I think that that concept of adding value and being their friend is is just more and more important, as more and more businesses have have realized what they need to do to get their media coverage.The best way to stand out is by almost, again, trying to be empathetic, I think being having empathy is really key, understanding people getting hundreds of emails, or hundreds of messages, standing out by offering value first, by being different with your value by being generous with your value and sort of having, let's say, the most important thing, an attitude of servitude.You know your product better than anyone, you know how to converse with these people better than anyone, you're you should be more natural at it, why not keep it in house and just hire those people and train themLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

There is an incredible amount of misinformation out there about influencer marketing. Fake followers, phony engagement, people that come out of nowhere and get paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars for posting a single photo on Instagram. Is this influencer marketing bubble about to burst? These are some of the ways influencer marketing is portrayed, but they miss out on a holistic definition of digital influence, which existed way before Instagrammers or YouTubers, and also ignore other trends in digital marketing that will push more and more brands to creating collaborations with influencers. Learn about how to do influencer marketing the right way by listening to this podcast - and if you are interested in The Age of Influence pre-order campaign, simply pre-order the paperback version from Amazon (https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence) and send me the receipt to neal@nealschaffer.com. You will then get access to my invite-only upcoming two webinars ... pre-order 3 copies, and you'll also get free access to my upcoming Business of Influencer Mastermind Group Coaching Program!Key Highlights [01:35] Why Influencer Marketing Is Something Most Marketers Have Not Defined Well[02:44] The Core Of Influencer Marketing[05:10] What Digital Influence Includes[05:54] Who Yields Influence?[06:29] Types Of Influencers Based On Number Of Followers[07:57] Influence Defined[08:46] Other Ways Of looking At Influence[09:17] Why Some Brand Advocacy Programs Aren't Doing Well[10:20] Things To Remember When Reaching Out To External Influencers[11:09] Why Influencer Marketing Is The Next Evolution Of Marketing[11:42] What Social Media Was Made For[13:21] The First Misnomer About Influencer Marketing[14:43] People Rule The Algorithms[16:57] The Age Of Influence Pre-Order[18:48] The Importance Of Building A Team And Scaling Down[20:51] SummaryNotable QuotesAt the core, influencer marketing is about relationship building.Digital Influence includes, but is not limited to social media. It includes a website and the authority that your website has. It includes email marketing, and the size and engagement of your list. And obviously, it includes social media as well.We're finding with smaller networks, it's more niche, but it's also tighter, the content creator has more influence, and it's actually more authentic. So this leads to influence and influencers being a lot more people.I think the more influence you can yield beforehand before you reach out to them. And the more brand affinity you can build through social signals, this is going to help you become so much more efficient and more effective with your influencer marketing.The message here is, let's get back to what social media was made for, because it was made for people, not for businesses.The best way to get heard today is through those entities that have influence on these platforms and its people and guess what, people relate more to people than they ever will to a bLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Join me for an insightful interview with the bestselling marketing author David Meerman Scott, who's The New Rules of Marketing and PR has sold more than 400,000 copies worldwide. David joined me for an interview where he revealed the background and a preview of his new book: Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans. While the theme of "fans" has been something covered by others, David offers a unique approach backed by case studies and neuroscience which I believe you will find quite insightful. Once you hear the scientific background behind Fanocracy, you might join me in believing that it really might be the next evolution in marketing - for those forward-looking companies who empower their marketing and customer experience teams to push forward on a "fanocracy" initiative. For my listeners, even if you are not a large enterprise, the same concepts that David discusses can be leveraged by any entrepreneur, small business owner, or marketer. You can purchase your own copy of Fanocracy here.Key Highlights [00:29] Introduction of Podcast Guest, David Meerman Scott[01:12] How David Came Up With Writing the Book[04:58] The History of Fanocracy[07:22] The Intersection of Customer Experience and Fanocracy[10:55] Creating True Human Connection[14:28] Developing Fandom[15:07] The Idea of Mirror Neurons[19:45] What Fanocracy is About[21:55] Connect with DavidNotable QuotesAnd I think, though, Neil, that too many people, I know, you see this too, too many people are abusing these ideas. Now, too many people think they know how to use these new rules of marketing and PR, but they don't use them in the way that you and I talk about it.These social networks themselves are part of the problem. Because there's, in the beginning, you know, you would put out a piece of content, it would go to your network. Now, unless you pay, it doesn't go around. It doesn't get out to that many people, when you put out an update, the social networks also try to polarize people into political spaces.What we did though, is we came up with 10 different chapters, each one is a prescription to help grow fans in some way. So we recognized that there are many ways to create this true human connection. And that's really what every chapter is about, in some way, creating a true human connection between you and what we hope will become your fans.It turns out that we humans are hardwired to be interested in becoming part of a tribe. And that's because our ancient brain as a survival technique, has to find people who are part of our tribe, because that's where we're safe. As opposed to people who we meet who are not part of our tribe, where there's potential danger. This is hardwired in our brains.So what this means for developing fandom is that the more you can put people into your social or personal space, the more you can develop those true human connections.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you think influencer marketing is just about famous consumer brands spending lots of money to have YouTubers and Instagrammers talk about them, you are far from the truth! Discover how any business in any industry can and should leverage influencers in this episode #142. Learn more about my upcoming book on influencer marketing, The Age of Influence, at https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence.Key Highlights[01:36] Can Small Businesses Leverage Influencers?[03:47] Send Me Questions![05:40] Believe in Influencer Marketing[07:00] Influencer Marketing As An Extension of Celebrity Endorsement[08:12] Two Ways of Collaboration[09:42] Knowing the Voices of the Community[11:11] How to Find the Right People[14:10] HowTo Become An Influencer?[16:09] Go Broader with Your Keyword Research[17:02] The #1 Mistake Small Businesses Make When Reaching Out to Influencers[18:06] "10-Person Rule"[20:20] Ways to Categorize Influencers[22:24] Have A Pool of Influencers[22:56] Assess Your Pitch[24:50] The Ideal Way of Reaching Out to Influencers[26:51] Developing the RelationshipNotable QuotesSocial media algorithms are controlled or managed by supply and demand.Regardless of how big or small your company is, it really comes down to who are the voices in the community that can help push your product forward in terms of it becoming aware by a new audience that doesn't know you or maybe an existing audience that you want them to get to know you better. This is a universal concept regardless of the size of your business that you should be talking about. So who is talking about you, or about your competitors or about product names, and from there, you're going to begin to build a list of people that might be influential, you don't just want to look at follower count, you want to look at actually how many people are engaging with that content.I think it's natural that marketers who get involved in the space want to become more influential. So at the end of the day, you need to understand the concept of influence and it's really going to help you in your influencer marketing as you become more influential. It's really about finding a comfortable follower range. Right now, followers alone are not everything, they need to have a certain amount of engagement. Start small, right? Start with people that actually have less global influence, but still have great influence in their niche.There are a lot of things you can offer influencers and influencers are only asking for money. That's where I sort of think of that as a red flag, because not every influencer is in it for the money. And if they are only in it for the money, it's more of a business to them. And you're not going to get any special treatment. Because the idea here is that whoever we work with whatever influencer we work with, we want to convert them into becoming a brand ambassador.  Really reach out to them while you continue to expand the number of influences that you work with.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you are a marketer, especially a digital or social media marketer, it really gets more and more difficult with each passing day to keep track of all of the changes going on in the world of marketing as well as all of the excellent and insightful blog content that are being published. From following social media feeds to subscribing to RSS feeds and newsletters, all of us marketers have our own system that we have created to try to cope, but this approach may not be ideal, especially for the subject matter that we are less familiar with.This episode #141 features an interview with Yam Regev, CEO and Founder of Zest.is. We discuss all of the changes in marketing that marketers need to be concerned about, how can marketers consume all of the blog content that is being published on a daily basis, as well as how a combination of Community + Content + AI utilizing the free Zest.is app can help support today's marketer. You can access Zest at https://zest.isAs mentioned in the intro, I do host livestream shows with some of the top thought leaders in marketing infrequently, so if you are interested, please make sure you subscribe to my newsletter so that I can let you know the next time I record one. You can do so by going to my website and entering you email address on the sidebar widget or the one at the bottom of each page: https://nealschaffer.com Key Highlights[02:57] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Yam Regev[03:48] What Is Zest?[08:32] The Heart and Core Of Zest[17:15] The Learning Management Aspect Of Zest[20:11] Our Email Feature[23:10] Does Zest Offer Certification Programs?[26:55] New Emerging Topics That Are Critical For Marketers[27:59] The Reality Of Marketing Industry[30:35] What Zest Provides[31:13] 2 Key Areas Marketers Need To Be Top Of The Game[35:59] Built-in Feedback Process[39:40] Most Searched TagsNotable QuotesWe feel that we live in a huge global shift, right in the way that we consume content. And it seems that the way that we expect content to be to be it needs to be more personalized, and on demand.The cheaper it is to create content, the accessible the internet gets the more content and information that will be.The content creators themselves are creating a lot of content, but they're not necessarily updating the old content, which Google I get gives really, really good authority to If that old content was able to generate a lot of backlinks and engagement.I think that's the core issue with Google is that even if you find a great piece of content, we tried to be relevant and even knowledge building for you, you know, some maybe someone worked quite hard to get these results, and to target us specifically.The way that you consume a knowledge or the way that you prioritize what content you want to consume, should be we can call it social, socially based, based on a lot of parameters, but also about who you are, well, what is your surroundings? What are the kinds of people that you want to be like?Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

For whatever social media channel you want to become proficient at, STOP listening to this podcast and START becoming a user of the channel! As marketers, we sometimes look for new social networks or content mediums to utilize for marketing, but instead of reading blogs or listening to what advice others give us, becoming actual users and consumers of the content on those platforms or of those mediums is probably the single most important thing you can do at the beginning to get better at them. This episode #140 was inspired by my own podcast and the confession that I personally wasn't a consumer of podcasts yet was a podcast creator. While the positive thing is that I might not have been influenced by other podcasters and thus my podcast might be unique, it also means that I failed to grasp the importance of certain things about my podcast or the needs of podcast audiences. As mentioned in the intro, if you haven't subscribed to my newsletter, please do so by going to my website and entering you email address on the sidebar widget or the one at the bottom of each page: https://nealschaffer.comKey Highlights [03:51] Batching And Repurposing Content[06:28] The Thing About Podcasting[07:16] Media Consumption Difference With Every Generation[10:12] Blogs As Part Of SEO[10:49] Top 3 Areas I Generate Traffic To My Website[13:10] An Ineffective Way Of Using Social Media[14:11] Why People Are In Social Media?[16:55] The Power Of Podcasting That I Realized[17:51] What Podcasting Gives Me[19:40] Be Part Of The Network You Want To Monetize[20:02] How To Go Deep Into A PlatformNotable QuotesBlogs, from my perspective, be part of its brandy. But part of its SEO, right. It's like posting a bad photo on Instagram, and it's going to kill your engagement. Bad blog content is going to kill your relationship with Google as well.You got to be in the platform to know what works, that we repeat that you have to be an active user, you have to want to use the social network and use it on a daily basis and engage in a daily basis and become part of the community if you want it to work for your business.So you got to be part of the network. And once you're part of the network, and you're actually engaging with people, like you care, you don't see them as $1 sign, because you truly want to help them. Because you know, you can help them better than anyone else, you know that by investing in you, and you're investing in them, they're gonna get tremendous ROI.For me, the podcast gives me the opportunity to learn from them to get to know them better to be influenced by those I want to be influenced by. And now I'm getting back to thinking you know, all those people who just interview other people, that's why they're doing it, there's nothing wrong with that they're learning from them. They're using it as a vehicle to develop relationships.If you don't know how to go deep into a platform, you know, I always say social media was made for people, not for businesses. It's not rocket science, spend five minutes a day, spend 10 minutes a dayLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How do you advertise your profile amongst so many professionals while you are still only a college student? And what might professionals learn about their own LinkedIn profile optimization from my advice to college students? Listen on for the details!Key Highlights[01:10] What is LinkedIn?[02:37] LinkedIn Vs Other Social Media Platform[03:30] Why LinkedIn Profile Is Important[04:50] Deciding On A Path That You Will Represent On LinkedIn[05:40] What To Put On Your LinkedIn Profile[07:06] Navigating LinkedIn[09:50] What Profile Photo To Use[11:31] Professional Headline Summary[13:16] Doing Searches For Other Professionals/Students In LinkedIn[13:30] LinkedIn Groups[14:20] About Section[16:19] Summary Section[19:36] Work Experience Section[21:04] Adding Volunteer Experience, Certifications, and Lincenses[22:08] Recommendation Requests[23:50] What To Put In Industry[24:22] Why You Need To Include Your Location[25:16] SummaryNotable QuotesLinkedIn is where decision makers are right? People that are executives in businesses that are leaders in their field, professionals in general, I think that LinkedIn says that three quarters of all working professionals are on LinkedIn, and older people, haha, compared to Gen Z, older people treat LinkedIn differently as well.LinkedIn gives you the ability to enter an incredible amount of information about yourself. And it is really, really important that even as a college student who may not have a lot of professional information, you need to completely fill it out the best you can.The important thing here is that if you're in college, you need to decide on a path that is going to best represent you on LinkedIn.I highly recommend you use something because that is going to be when people come to your profile, the number one thing that they see below that now we have your own image, your own photo, this should be as professional as possible.You definitely want to make a great first impression on LinkedIn like everywhere else. And that first impression is going to come out through that photo of you in addition to that cover photo.If you're ever wondering about, you know, what is the best way to do this, there's no one wrong or right answer. It's all sort of a gray zone that really comes down to you and your personal branding and the unique people that you're trying to attract.Part of branding, is talking about your strengths and your experiences. The other part is how you are differentiated than other people.So once again, those things that especially tie into what you want to do, even if it was a few weeks sort of internship, I highly recommend you put it in here, it's going to gain you more visibility in LinkedIn, it's also going to give you more credibility, and paint a fuller picture of who you are. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Customer experience marketing. It's a buzzword that a lot of people throw out, but what exactly does it mean, how important is it to you business today, and what are the first steps you can take to implementing customer experience marketing the right way?I could not think of a better person than friend and customer experience marketing expert Dan Gingiss to have on my podcast to answer these questions and more for my listeners.As Dan explains, customer experience marketing is a vital aspect to both your online and offline business. It also could be the one defining thing that can differentiate your brand from your competitors. Dan takes us through the correct way to implement customer experience marketing. Listen in and read the show notes below to learn more.Key Highlights[00:44] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dan Gingiss[04:09] What Dan Realized About Social Marketing[08:03] Defining Customer Experience[08:44] 2 Keys of Customer Support[10:57] Why Customer Experience Is Getting A Buzz Just Now?[13:00] Customer Experience As The True Differentiator For Brands[13:21] You Need To Compete With Experience[13:39] Example Of A Company That Provides Great Customer Experience[16:33] Creating Emotional Attachment With Your Customers[17:16] Customer Experience Audit[22:21] Dan's Advice To Companies[25:01] Connect With DanNotable QuotesBy spending time focusing on providing remarkable experiences, you can get more people talking positively about your brand and start drowning out some of that negativity.The way that I define customer experience is that it is how people feel about every single interaction they have with a brand.One of the things that I love to say is that I believe today, there's no such thing as an offline customer experience. Because even things that we used to consider being offline, like say, being on an airplane, well, the guy that was dragged off the airplane, showed us that not everything on an airplane is offline anymore, right? Because it can come online in an instant.I believe that customer experience is going to become the last true differentiator for brands.When companies treat their customers well, customers don't mind as much, they don't pay as much attention to a sale down the road that you know, is going to get them a 10% discount to what you're charging them, because they know that you're going to take better care of them.Creating that emotional attachment is, is probably going to be a great way to generate a positive customer experience.I'm talking about actually becoming a customer and actually going through the process of whatever it is that your company offers to customers.The harder thing is creating unique, remarkable new experiences. Differentiation, that is gonna make people talk about your brand versus another one's, that's tough, that takes a long time, and usually many years to establish. But getting rid of existing pain points is easy. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Getting to the front page in the search rankings is a battlefield - you're fighting a war! The struggle to stay relevant and compete with an ever growing number of competitors requires the right tools and the right approach to revitalizing existing blog content and strategically creating new content.If you are approaching content from a social media marketing perspective, or from a blogging perspective, today's podcast is going to really resonate with you because I want to give you a hopefully new and really holistic way of thinking about search engine optimization and therefore the content that either you already have  on your site or new content that you are going to blog in the future as part of your content marketing and social media marketing effortsKey Highlights[03:39] What drives traffic?[03:47] Why Search Engines Are Relevant And Powerful[04:46] The Concept Of Freshness[05:36] Data-driven Approach[06:19] Why Some Content Outperform And Some Underperform?[06:57] Minimum Number Of Words for Blog PostsNotable QuotesAt the end of the day search engines is what drives traffic.I still think at the end of the day, you know, people read emails, people read blogs, but people do a heck of a lot of searches.Search engines are still there and are still as powerful and as relevant as ever. And therefore, when we think about content, we should be thinking about search engines.Why does some content outperform and some underperform? Well, what I've found some of the underperforming content is actually competing with good performing content on your websites.If you blogged about the same thing over and over again, Google is just going to try to find the best one if you're trying to target the same keyword.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Social media keeps changing. It seems that every few weeks you hear that Facebook has some new algorithm that messes up all the energy you’ve been putting into it. Then a new feature appears and everyone tells you how amazing it is for branding and marketing. And then it turns out that it’s not as amazing as everyone says (remember Periscope?). How do we keep track of the social media marketing trends? How do we adapt? How do make sure to stay atop of the ever-flowing changes but at the same time never waste too much energy on them either? Today I interview an expert to help you answer all those questions about social media marketing trends. During my recent trip around the world, I was able to go to the Falcon.io "Spark" conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where I finally had a chance to meet up with someone I've known and respected in social media for quite some time: Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and former social media director for the The Next Web as well as consultant to organizations such as the United Nations and BBC. In this interview I talk with Matt about what has happened to social media in the past 12 months and what’s next for the future with regards to social media marketing trends. Should businesses continue experimenting with Facebook? How can brands make use of both Instagram and Facebook Stories? What is the next big thing? Listen to find out!Key Highlights [01:09] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Matt Navarra[02:47] Areas Where Matt Is Shifting Focus On[03:48] Is Facebook Underutilized By Brands?[05:08] How Matt Helps Brands Create Visual Content Strategy Around Stories[06:39] Tools That Matt Recommends[08:27] The Instagram Swipe Up Feature and Facebook Stories[11:33] Matt's Take on Pinterest[13:35] Trends That Brands Should Be Focusing Now[18:57] Matt's Advice on Creating Strategy[20:35] Final Thoughts[22:00] Connect With MattNotable QuotesSo the big thing that most people are talking about at the moment is really moving away more than ever, from focusing on Facebook pages, and also post pages and profiles in general. And it's that trend of people wanting to understand the value and how to leverage the value from stories as a format, which is not new, per see.Well, the first thing is that, you know, there's you don't always have to do all yourself and sometimes I think brands and both small and large organizations try and do everything themselves.I think that some of the best stuff that's created is often the simplest, and the little things that look more most authentic. It's not a medium that needs to be polished, I think the more polished it is, the less authentic it becomes. And that's when it kind of loses its value.It all comes down ultimately to how creative you've been in kind of steering people towards swipe up, also giving them a reason or inner motivation, a desire to want to see what it is that you needed to do to take that next action. So it's really it's the classic stuff back to marketing is creating the desire, making it easy to do, giving them something that they can't get somewhere else, all of that stuff and making the call to actionLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

16 days. 6 countries. 2 continents. After a business trip around the world, I pondered what role businesses should play in social media. And then it dawned on me: Social media marketing has been going on for ten years, but brands on average still suck at it. Should businesses keep trying to do the same thing? Or is it time for a next generation, new approach to social media marketing that takes into account the fact that we are now entering our second decade of implementing organic social? Listen on for the conclusion that I have and the advice for you to completely blow up and reconstruct your social media marketing efforts to be more effective in 2019 and beyond.Key Highlights [00:49] It's Time For Second Generation Strategies[03:41] Why Influencer Marketing Is Ahead In Southeast Asia And China[04:42] How Influential Influencers Are In China And Southeast Asia[06:03] Brands Moving More Into Paid Social[06:40] Do Consumers Want To Talk To Brands On Social Media?[08:28] Influencers Are The Best Content Creators[10:44] How Most Businesses Started Out[11:53] Inciting Word Of Mouth[12:47] Marketers Are Miseducated On Influencer Marketing[13:38] Redefining Influencer Marketing[17:07] Invest In Relationship With PeopleNotable QuotesI think that businesses really understand the influence that these people have in that part of the world.We've been doing social media marketing for a decade now. And I think we need to come to the realization, and I keep saying it, but it bears reminding that social media was made for people, not for businesses, right? Businesses really shouldn't be in social media. But I don't think that people want to have conversations with brands in social media, unless they're gonna complain, perhaps if they have a question.That's what social media is about, is about building relationships with people.Many businesses started out word of mouth, happy customers, successful customers, they told their friends, and so on. But what's important here is that I applaud falcon.io Because one of the keywords in Spark, that digital marketing conference I spoke at was how going forward? Do we incite conversations that connect? And I think that's what it's about, right? It's about leveraging our customers who 10 years ago, we're not on social media, but they're on social media. Now, it's about spreading word of mouth through social media.So if business is about word of mouth marketing, and social media should have been about word of mouth marketing, the only way to incite word of mouth marketing is not from the declining reach of your organic posts, nor is it about your advertisements. It's about leveraging people.What's important is that we need to redefine and the business of influence is going to be all about redefining it. And I think that employee advocacy is a great way to begin that thought process of redefining influencer marketing when you consider your employees influencers.instead of going after people that have no brand affinity with you, build from your fans.It's people, people rule, social media, people will always rule social media.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I recently keynoted social media enterprise platform company Falcon.io's Spark conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on the topic of influencer marketing. I had a chance to meet with their founder and CEO, Ulrik Bo Larsen, at the event and get his perspective on all things social media marketing. Listen in for his advice.Key Highlights [00:48] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ulrik Bo Larsen[02:27] Successful Things Jay See That Brands Do In Social and Digital These Days[05:03] Falcon.io's Core Message of Marketing[05:46] The Areas Where Marketers Need To Improve On[09:01] Big Things That Marketers Miss Out Of[11:13] Bringing The Content Team Together[16:26] The Focal Points Marketers Should Focus On[17:28] Three Centers Of GravityNotable QuotesA lot of these great things that people want to achieve on these channels, which is often starts with a marketing message, you want to want to get a specific message out, you want to set on specific product, you want to create a rareness around a brand, a lot of those things are now especially in I would say in the mid market and some of the more innovative enterprise companies, people are starting to realize that a lot of those things are very intertwined.I think that a lot of things are moving towards you know, visual content. And it obviously you know, sometimes changes the need for kind of the you know, the expertise you need internally to produce that is different than just writing copy but but it's all those things are coming together.So I think you need to engage with perhaps a new set of agencies to help you out produce some of that content and you need to staff your own your own teams in ways so that you can maneuver what is you know, the changing landscape of what constant formats are working and it's video it's visual video now it's portrait instead of landscape and all those things are constantly happening right and you write us need to be Ready for for that and embrace it as you know, an exciting line of work rather than oh my god, I thought I had it down, because that's never gonna happen.You may have some, some some difference of, of, you know, personality, and there are differences throughout the states of America for sure. But it is, you know, it's my new compared to the differences in culture over here. So I think that that's important. So you often get into a more more refined set up with, with regional and local markers, local activation, where you take some of those some of the content pieces and really want, you need to localize them to these to these markets over here.What you want to do, you want to bootstrap them with some tooling, and some platforms, and something to kind of hold on to create longevity, on all the, you know, customer interactions, all the profiles, you build up all those things you want to create, you know, you want to build up repositories of those types of things. And we think as a tool vendor, as a product company, having that mindset is really important.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Influencer Marketing is about way more than just Instagram influencers with millions of followers. This episode is a preview of Neal's new book on influencer marketing, The Business of Influence, and aims to change your mindset to understand that influence is literally everywhere, on every social network and content medium, and those who influence include your followers, customers, partners, and even employees.Key Highlights[01:49] Why Influencer Marketing Is Today's Hot Topic[02:16] Compelling Reasons To Be Utilizing Influencer Marketing[03:29] Books About Influence[05:27] The Definition and Concept of Influencer Marketing[07:55] Influence Is Everywhere[09:15] Early Form of Influencer Marketing[10:11] Longes Life Span Of Social Posts[11:02] What Is Affiliate Marketing[11:07] How To Become An Affiliate[11:55] Other Types Of Influencer Marketing[12:03] Brand Advocacy[13:15] More Types of Influences[14:51] People Always Outperform Businesses[16:16] Expanding Mindset About Influencer Marketing[17:34] Using Events To Expand InfluencesNotable QuotesI believe that influencer marketing should be a fundamental part of a company's marketing. And this is not just for consumer brands that are targeting Millennials or tweens for any brand, including b2b brands, including nonprofits and government organizations.When you begin to think about all this holistically, you begin to see that influence does not depend on social network influence really is everywhere.So we can't forget when we talk about influencer marketing, the power of working with bloggers because, you know, the lifetime of a tweet is very short.Here's the thing, an influencer doesn't have to be that 10 million follower, Instagram celebrity. And influencer might only have 5000 followers, but they have a very, very highly engaged community in something that is relevant to the products and services that you offer. Now you begin to see how broad of a definition influencer marketing should be. There's plenty of stats out there that show that by investing in relationships with your customers, you will end up getting more business than investing in advertising outside of your customers.  In other words, not only through loyalty, will your customers purchase more from you, but they will also refer you to others that will end up being your customers as well.And I think the whole idea about working with influencers is ideally at the end of the day, you want to try to convert them into becoming brand advocates, right?The whole idea is that social media was made for people, not for businesses, right.But if you use the creation of around a blog post, as a way to hopefully get them to share your posts, or at a minimum, it helps you establish a relationship with the influencer for the future.So events are a powerful, powerful form of marketing. And when you include influencers as part of them, it is a great way to yield ROI and to strengthen those relationships. And you get to meet these influencers in person where you can really deepen that relationship.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Roundup posts are a powerful form of influencer marketing when strategically planned and implemented correctly, especially but not limited to B2B businesses. Learn how to create your own roundup posts with this interview with Codrut Turcanu, one of the global leaders in producing expert roundup blog posts.Key Highlights[00:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Codrut Turcanu[02:38] How To Define A Roundup Blog Post?[04:40] How Did Codrut Started The Concept Of Having Experts Chime In Your Blog[07:05] Pain Points Businesses Will Face The First Time They Do Influencer Outreach[09:55] Why And How Roundup Blog Posts Benefits Businesses[11:58] Success Stories[15:48] Case Study Example[19:05] Ballpark Number For Roundup Posts[21:47] Codrut's Final AdviceNotable QuotesThe quick, the quick, or the fast solution would be to think about what is the end result? Once you know the goal, or the main achievement, then you can start and create or compile your experts list or your influence in classes list.What I recommend my clients do, first of all, before they set on the goal, before they decide what they really want to achieve with their first test Roundup, then I suggest that they create a list with people whom they already connected with, these might go back to previous clients, doing Venture Partners, and so forth.Definitely worth about because you connect with people who are already influential in their marketplace in the industry, actually, when you associate with people who already have an audience, already have access to people who work or want to access, like, for example, leads clients, social media ordinances, and so forth.It also puts you on the radar of these influencers, because now you're starting to build a relationship with them through this engagement through this tactic of inviting them to have their opinion voice. And with the right promotion with the right strategy, you may be able to collaborate with them so that they can promote your blog post, then you can also use your newsletter and social media accounts, to drive traffic to your back to your blog post as well to your expert.This is why I recommend my parameters to my clients, because they open the door to a long term relationship and the links the social shares, the visitors leads and clients will follow quickly afterwards, it will come as a natural effect.Now, one remark I want to make this, this concept of excellent that can be just and implemented in any niche, no matter how large or small in any industry. That's why I suggest to my clients to go to connect with those on the middle levels, who have a sizable and significant audience, but they are so respond to emails or to their social media accounts personally.Always focus on quality content, and quality experts. And this goes back to listening to your audience, because your audience actually will dictate how you adjust your strategy whom you connect with, and what type of content they they want to read or listen to.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

On this podcast I first compare the concept of an Instagram follower policy with that of other social networks and then focus on detailing my experience on Instagram to help you create a policy that will help you grow both Instagram followers and engagement.Key Highlights[03:36] Why I Spend A Lot of Time On Instagram[04:37] Following Policy[06:42] Understanding Limitations[09:22] Why You Should Prune Your Connection[18:32] Instagram Limitation[19:54] What Fuels The Influencer Marketing Industry[22:43] Another Reason Why You Should Reduce Irrelevant Followers[23:58] The Golden Sign of Fake Influence[29:00] The 1,500 RuleNotable QuotesI like to say no one has a monopoly on ideas. No one has a monopoly on storytelling.At the end of the day. You need to have your own policies. as to how you want to use I mean, it obviously you need to have your own strategy as to how you want to use Instagram, is it going to be for personal for business for both? But you need to have a policy as to who you're going to follow.If no one engages with that content, boom, no one else is going to be able to see that content. And that's why having, you know, quantity is important. But the quality is even more important, because the quality of the relevance in your connections is not there, right? Your content is not going to be seen by anybody, it's going to be seen, first of all, by irrelevant people. I think it's important to also show people that follow you that if they're real and relevant, you're going to follow them back, because it's social media. One way of building out a community is through social signals is tapping people on the shoulder. And one of the tactics that you use for that, in addition to commenting and liking and you know, the different ways you can engage with people is definitely following them.I, for someone that's investing on a daily basis, investing time in a platform, I want to engage with other people on Instagram that are equally invested in the platform as I am right. I want to know that they're publishing on a regular basis, they're engaging on a regular basis. So this is one way in which we begin to look at the importance of not only the follower following ratio, but also this average engagement rate. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What are the biggest issues facing the influencer marketing industry today? And how can marketers best navigate the influencer landscape? Join me for an exclusive insider's look at the influencer marketing industry in this interview with Eric Dahan, CEO of the leading influencer marketing technology company OpenInfluence.Key Highlights[00:24] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Eric Dahan[01:31] How Powerful Is Influencer Marketing?[05:16] The Types Of Influencers Brands Should Be Working With[10:00] Things That Brands Need To Improve Upon Working With Influencers[10:32] The Common Mistakes Brands Do In Influencer Marketing[15:03] Influencer Marketplace Model[15:41] The Issues With Influencer Marketplace[21:22] Friction Of Supply And Demand[25:01] Influencer Pricing[27:23] Connect With Eric And Open InfluenceNotable QuotesI think, you know, the reasons why influencer marketing is so successful, is pretty straightforward. You know, there's so much information out there, there's so many ads out there. And so it makes sense that when you have an influencer, that you're already following, you're already consuming the content they create, when they integrate a piece of branded content with their normal content stream. It just resonates a lot better, right?At the end of the day, you know, there's no one size fits all strategy, right? For a very simple level,, you have three components, right? You have the message, the messenger, and the audience, and all those three things have to be aligned, to have something really resonate and be effective. And so you know, believe me when I say, we love nothing more than dynamic marketplaces, and being able to extract deficiencies with transparency.I think the right approach is identifying the right influencers, and then shopping from those influencers, having them compete against one another, for opportunities. And that's a really good forcing function for driving, you know, cost down in value up. But in today's world, with the emergence of social media, with the emergence of mobile, native social platforms, you opened the door to, you know, from a handful of celebrities, to now hundreds of 1000s and millions of people becoming, you know, influencers.And so there are all these different variables that really affect and influences price, because influencers are people and for them, they don't really have a high cost structure, right, they've recovered, essentially their living expenses, but they don't have any cost of goods sold associated with what they're selling.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How fresh is your content? Content is the currency of social and digital media, yet what type of content in what content medium do you publish in what outlet or social media website? Join Neal for an insightful look into why content has an expiration date and what you can do to get the best ROI from your content.Key Highlights[03:47] Content As Currency of Social Media[05:40] Content Marketing Bridges Gap[08:11] It's About Engaging[10:18] Engagement Content[11:54] Written Content[13:04] How I Began My Blog[16:47] Figuring Out Your Best Brand[17:30] Moving To NealSchaffer.com[19:22] What I Do With My Old Blog Posts[20:17] Ways Of Devaluing Your Site[21:56] Ideal Content Types[23:49] News Value On Twitter And LinkedIn[24:11] SEO Audit ToolsNotable QuotesContent is the currency of digital media. Without content, you really have no presence on the Internet.And the idea about content marketing is you're trying to bridge that gap between the content that you want to publish to promote your own products and services, and the content that your prospective clients want access to.So those engagement type of content are really specific to social media. A lot of it is visual and they really help both humanize your Brand and help you deepen relationships with those that might have a similar interest. And that's always going to come to your favor.And the whole reason why and really, at the end of the day, especially when you think about the way that algorithms work, and the way that people associate or have greater affinity with other people than with brands, that my best brand is my name, Neal schaffer.com.Whatever industry, you're in technology changes over time.If engagement content is fleeting, as it should be because the life of a post in social media is very short. I will say though, with hashtags on Instagram, and Pinterest, these are areas where the content lives a little bit longer.  But no matter how much you try to make it evergreen, like those LinkedIn posts, like the cloud posts, or the Foursquare posts, it changes. So something can never be evergreen.But guess what, you're never going to be able to compete with the big boys. Because they just have they already have greater domain authority and search engines, they already have a larger following than you do. There really is little value in trying to publish news that everybody is going to read somewhere else anyways.  And that's why even a blog post, no matter what type of blog post, no matter what type of company, it has an expiration date, nothing in this world, unfortunately, it's going to last forever.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today Neal is mixing it up with an interview as he gets ready to hit the road again in the next couple of months. He’s talking to someone he’ll be meeting at the upcoming Social Tools Summit in Boston, Jay Shemenski, who is the Digital Manager of the Harvard Medical School. Listen in to hear him talk about how he got to Harvard Medical School, what his goals are in managing their social, and what he’s looking forward to talking to at the Social Tools Summit.Key Highlights [01:09] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jay Shemenski[01:36] Jay's Journey To Social Media Marketing[05:18] Getting Experience In Google AdWords, PPC, and  SEO[07:16] Jay's Advice For Social Media Practitioners[09:43] The Use Of Harvard Medical School In Social Media[11:26] Who Are Jay's Target Audiences?[12:03] Elements To Look At To Decide Iff A Program Is Possible[13:52] Social Tool Summit Session That Jay Wanted To Be On[16:22] Tips On Developing Visual Content[18:50] Connect With JayNotable QuotesI mean, even now looking at social media, and looking at how you can start to work with native ads and paid ads, and targeting to certain audiences. It's really the same principles. It's really just, you know, how much you know about particular users and how you can engage with them and increase that engagement.I think it's, you know, everything that you work with, you're going to pick up bits and pieces that enhance that singular focus. So I think getting that broad base is very important, because nothing happens in a vacuum. And you're going to need to know how all the different pieces work together, in order for you to be able to demonstrate the ROI of social and the impact that social is having, and how it influences all the other pieces.With us, we take more of a competitive analysis look and say, what's our share of voice? What's our share of engagement? You know, are we driving more attention than our competitors within the field? And then even kind of keeping an eye outside just the medical education field, and really just science media as a whole?What I'm really keyed into and excited about is, is visual, social, and how people in organizations can be using images, video to really tell their story in a much more emotional way, in a much more connected way.But I think one thing that was really lacking within our field is visually connecting the stories and the change that institutions organizations are driving through scientific discovery and through medicine. And that was an area where we could really develop a differentiated story about what we're doing here and you potentially connect to audiences in a deeper way, and also reach some new audiences.  So I think, really, the first step is taking a step back and assessing where you are in the field that you're working within, and where you can create value. And like I said, before, a differentiated story from your competitors, through images.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today I'm talking about something that I haven't talked about before: growth hacking. Growth hacking is basically how to quickly create a robust social presence on a newly launched effort in a short amount of time. I have had a few companies reach out to me for advice on this subject, and was recently asked what my first steps to start building a big presence would be. The ten tips I'm talking about today are great not only for social media newbies, but also for folks who maybe need to take a step back and make sure they haven’t missed these important steps.Key Highlights[02:51] 10 Steps Approach Improve Your Social Media Growth[03:13] Creating Social Media Strategy Based On Your Business Objectives[04:06] Determine Your Target Audience[05:36] Determine Your Primary Content[08:34] Leveraging Hashtags[11:00] Prepare An Editorial Calendar[11:59] Create A Branded Voice And Image[13:03] Prepare A Week's Worth Of Content[13:33] Start to Engage![15:27] Curate Content From Your Targeted Users[16:20] Create Social Media Workflow[16:55] Do a sprint[17:42] Do PDCA[18:07] Tweet Your Content[19:00] SummaryNotable QuotesNot everybody uses social media equally.So you really need to understand the unique demographics of these platforms. And you need to be able to understand which are the platforms where your target audiences. So as part of the social media strategy, you need to have a channel strategy and has to be determined by who your target audience is. But needless to say, you need to understand where your target audience is. And well why they use social media in the first place. Because if you can't answer that, no matter what you do, no matter what engagement you create, it could just go for waste, if it's the wrong target market.It's gonna come down to your company, your products and services and the way that you think you can cut through the noise. And actually be heard, be seen, be engaged with.Start to engage with other targeted users on the selected social networks through a combination of following follow back sharing their content and or commenting on their posts.Obviously, you have this power of introductions, if you connect with them, and they can connect you with the decision maker. You can ask them for an introduction, but if they're not going to respond to your introduction request it really makes no difference.There's a lot of different social media content out there, I try to find good content, from my followers first, from those that support me first.Look at the data that you've been measuring to make sure whether or not you hit your objectives. And understand ascertain what effects your social media have on your business. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today’s show is about something I'm very passionate about both for my clients and for my own brand: taking social media seriously. Social is becoming a bigger part for businesses large and small, and they are spending more and more resources on it, but it’s important to take it seriously and look at what you’re getting out of it. Putting processes in place can help you streamline your social media program and examine what is the best strategy for your business, which will in turn provide more ROI.Key Highlights[01:25] Take Social Media Seriously[03:36] Think About Your Processes And Protect Them[05:19] Find The Right Time For You[05:32] Re-read Maximize Your Social[07:14] Improving Your SEO[07:58] Re-doing Your Approach To Email[08:35] 2 Ways Of Looking At The Actual Social Networks[09:31] Look At Your Role Models[11:09] Look At Your Facebook Insights[11:47] Working on Pinterest[14:29] My Snapchat Presence[14:51] Own Your Hashtag[15:11] Loom At The Resource Part[15:50] 4 Ways To Scale[16:22] Leverage Your People In The Right Way[16:43] When To Outsource Task[19:39] Define Your ProcessNotable QuotesWhen I talk about getting series, that means really taking a step back. It's really about putting processes into your social media program.It's about the operations of social media, about making sure you're doing the right things, you're measuring the right things, and therefore you're delivering on what you need to do in order to make your social media program sustainable for whatever objective you're measuring it for.What I mean by this is really what is the objective, if you are trying to generate more leads, or you're trying to get more website traffic, which is often an objective, look at where your leads have been coming from over the last 12 months. And you might be surprised that this often surprises people.There's so much market to get out there. And it's going to come down to relationships and your audience and your community.You really need to balance everything because social complements, everything replaces nothing, maybe you need to take another look at that right?Whatever communities that you're involved in, okay, how much time you put into it, what are you getting out of it? And what are you posting and what's the frequency you're posting for things want you to look out.I am now actually trying to focus more on the quality and less than the frequency.I want you to bridge that gap by refocusing what you're doing. And you can use different techniques to do that.You can't outsource everything. But you can have the right people do the right jobs.You need to be in the right places with the right content, the content has to be powerful, valuable, resourceful. But more and more, it's coming down to the one to one relationships that you have with people that you meet or engage with over social.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Not long ago, Neal was on an “Ask Me Anything” on Product Hunt, a website that showcases new products, apps, and startups. Today he’s sharing some of the questions he answered during that session because he thought maybe if one person is asking this, other people are having these same questions. Listen in to hear Neal talk about everything from the best platforms to be on, tools to be using, advice for startups, and tips for fundraising for your new social business.Key Highlights[03:09] The Most Underrated Social Platform That Businesses Often Overlook[07:20] How I Discover My Love for Social [08:58] How Socials Are Used in Different Countries[11:33] Advice for Startups[12:38] Best  Rate for Traction[13:45] Which Paid Ads Should You Use?[15:13] The Social Media Strategy I Admire[16:36] The Other People in Social You Should Follow[18:04] Twitter's Biggest Challenges and Opportunities[19:42] My Favorite Social Media Tools[21:27] My Opinion On Social Selling ToolsNotable QuotesBut in order to get a larger following, you literally have to self promote yourself. It's very, very hard. If you're not a celebrity, I think Snapchat tends to be a little bit more challenging.I think the most underrated platforms are the ones that lose attention, especially when stock prices go down. I love to meet people, new people from all around the world in the daily basis. That's, that's what I love, right. And that's what social is all about.Create content to attract and share in social, build a hamper community by leveraging paid social in the savvy way, build a list using like a lead pages, and be helpful and push your product in an indirect way without pushing it. And I think you'll start to build up a community of hopefully loyal and passionate users.Social media is powerful. Only if people talk about your product, right? That's the viral aspect. Sometimes it happens organically but usually at the beginning you need to think of a creative way to get people talking about you. Social media, as as marketing in general, I love to say this is half science and half are you I am teaching you the science, you need to step it up, become the artist and paint a picture that works best with your own community. You can't replicate success. You can only replicate things that make sense to do for your own business, but they're going to be inherently different. And if they're not, you're probably not going to be successful. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Happy new year and welcome to the first solo episode of 2016. I've been thinking a lot about skills of the best social media marketers, and what I should be focusing on this year. The answer is focus: social media marketers wear lots of hats, and the only way to maintain a strategic approach is the ability to focus and keep on track. Listen in to hear how I keep focused, and why focusing on your business objective is crucial to your success.Key Highlights[02:19] Focus, Focus, Focus![03:41] Create More Vidoe Content[04:10] The Way I Focus[05:22] "Big Content"[05:57] "Other Content"[06:18] Optimizing My Tools[06:54] Idea Of Monetizing[09:03] You Need A Product Or Service[09:53] Becoming An Influencer Or Brand Advocate[11:55] Influencer Platforms Examples[13:29] Launch New Brand[15:36] Social Media Is About Having An Objective[16:46] Performing Audits On Your Social MediaNotable QuotesAs social media marketer, we wear a lot of hats, right? Whether it's content creation, engagement, listening, campaign planning, or analyzing the best social media marketers need to wear many hats across many social networks. And the only way to maintain a strategical approach amongst this whirlwind of never ending activity, that is social media, is the ability to focus and keep on track, ensuring that tactical objectives are implemented, and social media activities are strategically aligned. It's one habit, which truly separates the best from the rest.Social media replaces nothing, but compliments everything.Just getting lots of followers like a vanity metric, right? It has no business value. Just because someone likes your company doesn't mean that they have opted into your email or even considering buying from you. They can like you for a lot of different reasons, right? But without a product, there's no business there's influence but it has no power.The followers give you the credibility, but you need to be able to deliver on the cliques. And if you're on a social network, where you're just unsure as to what sort of clicks you're getting. That's a black hole.So the bigger the community, the morbidity, you have to cross promote, and therefore the more ability you have to launch new brands, or new offerings from scratch, and I think that's really the exciting thing here is if you can find a product or a service that you can either create or partner with But someone that has a lot of business value to your community, probably in there, you might be able to find another niche or something complementary, where you can branch off.At the end of the day, right, social media is about having an objective, and it has to be a business objective, and therefore you have to have a business. So that's only a question you can answer.ut the key thing is, you got to have focus, you got to have clarity, you got to be clear about your business objectives. And everything you do in social media, either directly or indirectly, has to be all about those business objectives.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today Neal is sharing an interview he did with Marylin Montoya of Sociabble. Sociabble, one of the sponsors of the 2015 Social Tools Summits, is an employee advocacy platform that uses content marketing and social media networks to connect relevant content to employees in order to showcase their company’s brand. Marylin is sharing her insider perspective and offering valuable information and advice based on lots of experience helping large clients plan and implement employee advocacy programs. Listen in to hear her talk about the value of employee advocacy, why your employees are your best assets, and why enterprise-wide employee advocacy is a natural progression of social business.Key Highlights[00:35] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Marilyn Montoya[02:48] What is Sociabble?[05:17] Why Employees Are The Company's Best Assets?[09:21] Ways Employee Advocacy Benefit Company[11:50] Evolution of Employee Advocacy Internally[15:16] How Sociabble Helps With Training The Company Set Up Employee Advocacy Program[17:00] Employee Advocacy In Europe Vs North America[20:28] Connect With MarilynNotable QuotesIt's a technology that uses content marketing, and social media networks, to connect relevant content to employees in order to showcase their company's brand.The main reasons are to obviously, amplify the message of the brand through the voice of the employees, and also, to allow those employees to engage in personal branding, with social networks, That means kind of develop a thought leadership through the content that the company is helping provide those employees and then, you know, also have them understand what it means to build your brand on social media. Business is done between people, not between company and people. So, the idea is, you know, let's, let's allow employees to engage with audiences on social media network through the help of tool.The reality is that, you know, companies must now be on social media, you know, almost everybody has a LinkedIn company page or an official Twitter handle. And then it's just a natural evolution and natural progression of that of that logic that, okay, well, actually, it's really important to be active on social media. I think the idea is that your employees are your best asset, you know, they're the people that understand your company, understand your brand. And they're also the people that engage with, you know, prospects and clients in real life.For the most part, you know, unless you have a very disgruntled employee, which does happen, most people want to showcase what they're doing, what they're working on, in their company, what role they're playing, you know, what projects they're working on. So the idea is, okay, let's allow people to share that, and to position themselves that as somebody that is an expert in something.I think it's not a negative thing to allow employees to showcase themselves and, and the contributions that they're making to their company. And by way of that, you know, making a good impression on behalf of the company. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The Social Tools Summit was a couple of months ago now, but I am still sharing some great conversations I had around the event. On today’s podcast, I'm talking to Chad Abbott, the CEO of Abbson Live, the company that provided all of the live streaming for the Social Tools Summit. Listen in as I go a little deeper with Chad, discussing how and why live video is an essential part of content marketing.Key Highlights[01:57] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Chad Abott[02:59] What is Live Streaming?[05:15] How Live Streaming Relates to Broader Marketing Strategy[09:47] Creating Exceptional Content[11:13] Starting Your Live Streaming Strategy[12:58] Chad's Suggestion for Consumer Facing Brands[14:31] How to Leverage Video for Social Media Marketing Services[17:01] Connect with ChadNotable QuotesI think video and especially live video has a power to captivate an audience online, like other forms of media do not. I think the brands that are being successful with live video right now, are the ones who sort of have a strategy in place. It's sort of easy to just kind of throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. And in fact, I think that's a good way to start. But then you need to sort of narrow it down and see what's working with your audience. We become so visual in social media marketing, and the visual shouldn't stop at the static. But live video, you'll frequently get people to engage for half an hour or more, which is just when you added an incredible, long amount of time to make a sales pitch compared to any other foreign content that's sitting out there.I think the assumption is it's enough to just do it because it's so new. And unfortunately, worth we find that's not true. Just like with bad writing, bad photography, bad film, bad television, people don't like bad content. And that's about what you're putting into the live broadcast. But it's also about what it looks like, is it? Is it beautiful? Does it engage people. And that is, is so often overlooked. If you want to whatever your normal strategy is, but put it on Periscope for the first time and see how your audience engages. And take care when you put it on periscope to make it beautiful, make it engaging, sit somewhere nice and introduce it and and then take people's questions and engage them don't make it a static broadcast, where it's only going one direction, let them contribute and maybe ask questions, and you'll get better content for your blog posts that way. I think the takeaway point is just that it's okay to just jump in and try it and sort of get a sense of what works with your audience. Every audience is different and just like every other form of content and has to be tailored to the people that you're targeting. So give it a try. Try these different platforms. There's nothing wrong with starting with some of the free ones and just seeing what works.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today on the podcast, Neal is sharing an interview he did at the Social Tools Summit in San Francisco with Chad McCaffrey and Daniel Hebert of PostBeyond. Listen in as they talk all about employee advocacy. This episode is full of great reminders for any company thinking about establishing an employee advocacy program, reasons to start one, and tips to help convince your team or executives internally as to why it’s time to try it.Key Highlights[00:44] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Chad McCaffrey and Daniel Hebert[01:45] How SHould Company View Employee Advocacy Now?[02:43] What To Do Next After Launching Employee Advocacy Program[05:23] Relevance of Content in Employee Advocacy Program[07:16] Internal Involvement Needed For Successful Employee Advocacy Campaigns[09:13] Engagement With HR Professionals[11:05] What To Teach Employees To Think About Employee Advocacy[12:35] Use Content To Fuel Relationships[14:58] The Business Value of Employee Advocacy[20:06] Final Thoughts[20:45] Connect With Post BeyondNotable QuotesI think was really important today, to note that, you know, what is the training? What is the setup to actually even think about doing this? And so, I think we focus a lot on that, and I certainly haven't talked about in his session, but like, the planning the training, what actually has to go in ahead of time before technology gets involved is really important.And one of the most important things to remember when employee advocacy is that it is an ongoing effort, it's not a one-off campaign.It is one of the things that I think it's a mindset for most enterprises to start adopting, an always-on marketing strategy, versus a campaign-based marketing strategy.I think when it comes to the con everything, the relevance is interesting across different areas. So people care about certain things, they're trying to hit their own goals. And so content certainly in social in general, it's very obvious that it feeds sort of everyone from the executive suite down to people on the on the ground level, if you think about it that way.I think, you know, you have to tie it to marketing still, because that's where the communication is getting stirred up, and really stemming from the strategy. But if you build a partnership between them, I think with anyone that's doing this successfully right now and the maturity of what's going on, it's, it's tying those two together nicely. It's sort of a marketing person, but the employer brand, yeah, their focus. They're sitting kind of between the two, they're that bridge. And I think that's the key and you start to think about these things. Ultimately, it's the people it's culture, it's what's going to drive more people to business.I think is the most beneficial to teach the employees to kind of sell this program to employees is that a program like this is really developed for building their personal brand.So I think that's one important thing to think about, and how these conversations are truly created in a trusted way. And the reputations build one to one word of mouth is huge, and hugely important part, to staLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Here's my advice on how to reach out to bloggers, influencers, and anyone else you want to talk about your company. It’s important to remember that bloggers and influencers are busy people being pinged by lots of other brands, so if you’re asking them to take time to use your product, and maybe even post a photo or blog about it - time isn’t free! Listen in to learn how to build a connection, what you can and should offer them, and how to make the relationship last by involving them in your content and programs.Key Highlights[03:44] How to Reach Out to Bloggers and Social Media Influencers[06:05] Time Is Not Free[06:30] Step One In Reaching Out To Influencers[07:04] Step #2[08:12] How You Should Start A Pitch[08:58] Step #3[09:54] Get Feedback![10:17] Christopher Columbus Approach[11:49] The Fifth Phase[13:07] The Common Sense Of 2015[13:43] SummaryNotable QuotesSocial media gives you the ability to listen and engage with anybody that's on social media, whether they're influencers or average people and I guess anybody can be an influencer, depending on your industry, right? But here's the thing. Don't just find an email, just connect on LinkedIn and go for the kill. Whether it's to tweet something out, or to write a blog post on something that requires time, time is not free, people are busy.For any influencer that you want to reach out to, connect with them on social media, follow them go to their profiles follow in like every single social media profile they have, and engage with their content.So it's not only following and engaging, but also looking for deep connections that make it easy for you to engage with that person. Too much expected something on the return, let them use your tool and expect nothing in return. Okay? And if they don't use your tool, they weren't relevant to begin with. Right? If they use your tool, then there's certain relevance.I recommend, take the Christopher Columbus approach, if you want to make friends. Bloggers don't have a lot of money don't have a lot of time, if you're a company, you have an asset, which is your product, send it over. It's not a one night stand, it's a long term relationship, figure out a way to derive value out of that relationship over a longer term, by letting that person test out new beta products that you might haveLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal recently visited South Africa and was interviewed on South Africa FM. Last week, you heard the first half of that interview. This week, listen in to hear a continuation of the conversation about social media for business, and what it might be like if we could start over with social media. What would we do differently? Would we change our priorities? You’ll also hear more about Neal’s story and how he got to where he is, as well as an entertaining countdown of questions.Key Highlights[01:59] Changes In Social Media Platforms[03:06] Can I Use All Platforms At The Same Time And Effectively?[04:23] Spray and Pray[05:02] What Did Mark Zuckerberg Do To Outperform MySpace?[07:22] What I Do To Help Businesses[08:32] How I Got Into Digital Marketing[11:00] The Story Of How I Wrote My First Book[12:07] Acknowledgements I Have Received[12:57] South African Digital Market[14:04] Beat The Clock QuestionsNotable QuotesThey need to make sure that you want to stick to it, the information you find is new, it's interesting. And they're really devoted to making sure that happens. So when you leave Facebook to go home, they still kept the Sun Microsystems sign that you actually have to see as you go home to as a reminder, we do not want to become the dinosaur. We always want to be fresh. But the problem is, the demographics are changing.Every network is different.I try to help businesses, and it's all about best practices. So we have companies that have succeeded, we have companies that have failed. The problem is that most companies start with a disadvantage. So there's, there's some cleanup work that's often involved, but it's really about, you know, how do we perfect what we do in social? How do we get how do we do best practices? How do we constantly improve?But you know, social media is, is an experiment, because the people that use it, how we use it, and the functionality being provided, is always changing. And therefore, we need to manage it like an experiment. So we need to have controls in place. And we need to make sure we need to be measuring and making sure that we're always doing our best.And that's why don't wait until you're in transition for that you should be building that on a daily basis, and really dig your well before you're thirsty. I have a very practical way. It's no fluff, practical, rational way of looking at social, which I think a lot of people find refreshing.I think the businesses have have really become one, they've really found a community in social media, they've served that community, whether it's through unique photos, or videos or content, they've allowed the community to decide on what products that they end up making.Brands in the past, they created this big wall between consumers and the company. And social media is really about breaking down those walls, and letting your customers become one with the brand. And it's a very, very new way of thinking, but I think those smaller businesses that get that are going to be the most successful one.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal is back! You’ve heard him talk about keeping it real in your social and your content, and he wants to keep it real. Neal’s goal is always to do this podcast regularly, but everyone’s busy! Since the last podcast, he’s traveled a lot, successfully launched the second Social Tools Summit in San Francisco in October, and spoken at a conference in South Africa. This episode is part one of a radio interview he did while he was there, and focuses on the value of social media and taking a step back and looking at the big picture.Key Highlights[04:44] Introduction[05:26] Why Business To Be Made From Going Social[06:27] How I Help Businesses[07:18] How Small Businesses Can Use Social To Grow Their Businesses[08:07] The Essence of Social Media[08:32] How to Start Using Social Media for Business[10:39] Social Media As A New Channel[12:38] How To Balance Social Media With Voice of the Company[13:17] The Advent of Employee Advocacy[14:06] Tomorrow's Talk[15:27] How Much Time Should You Allocate To Social Media?[17:56] Coming Down To Your ObjectivesNotable QuotesSocial media has become a major communication channel. But now social media, you have a website and digital, you have TV, radio, and you have social companies investing a lot more in it, because it is the public voice, you have the ability to reach out on a one to many scale that you just couldn't do until now.Social is not for business, it's for people.Everybody that's online, is basically using social media. And there are ways for us to engage with them on a one on one basis.Well, it starts with, like I said, understanding who your customer is, are they even using social media. And that's really where you start at the basic you need to be, you know, everybody knows the media, you need to be publishing content, because that's how you engage in social media. But you also want to be reaching out to people.And I like to say social media replaces nothing but compliments everything, right? So it's, it's a new tool, but the old rules of business are still in place.But now social media is a new channel, and more and more people are using it. So it's going to be important to keep an eye on and understand how you can use it and to help complement whatever else you do. Companies need to humanize the brand they need to talk like regular people do. And if they're not offering some sort of resource, some sort of utility, some sort of information that's useful to others, people will tune them out.Social is not, you know, it's a channel you do not want to sell on, it's the channel you want to have a conversation on and engage with others and really build community from This is where it comes down to your objective, your objective is going to be different than that small business owner, small business owner wants to sell, maybe they already have a monopoly in the market, they just want to, you know, keep mind share with their community, whatever it is.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today Neal is coming to you from Clearwater, Florida, where he actually did this podcast episode as a Periscope broadcast. And while he does talk a little bit about Periscope in this episode, what he’s mostly discussing is his new ebook which just came out on Kindle. It’s called Maximize LinkedIn for Business, and it came about from his visit to the LinkedIn Headquarters over a year and a half ago. Listen in to today’s episode for a rundown of what you can find in the ebook, and where you can get access to it.Key Highlights[01:17] What Is Maximize LinkedIn for Business Is About[03:10] Table Of Contents[03:17] How LinkedIn Is Being Used By Corporations and Professionals Today[04:49] Two Important Things You Need to Know[05:44] The Importance of Connections[05:56] Tactical and SEO Benefit of Having Connections[08:34] The Value of Network[09:05] Establishing Credibility[09:25] What Are Recommendations[10:20] Understanding Skills and Endorsements[10:57] How to Make LinkedIn Profile Private[12:44] Pulse Feature[14:02] Chapter 8[15:56]  LinkedIn Groups[16:44] Chapter 10Notable QuotesOne of the big mistakes or I should say one of the big things that people don't understand about LinkedIn is it's just for job search. So really, every professional and it's not just for job search, like I said, it's for your personal brand for your professional brand. And now more and more as an employee, you really need to have a certain aptitude of LinkedIn, you need to know how it works, and how you can make it work for you.Number one is really the mindset right, just understanding the value and the things that you're going to be need to do on LinkedIn. The second thing is The LinkedIn profile. So whatever you do on LinkedIn, it leads people to your profile, right. And I think people take it for granted.It's a matter of, you know, sending them invites, as a matter of after you meet someone at a meeting of actually doing a follow up and saying, Hey, would you like to connect on LinkedIn, it's printing your LinkedIn URL and your business card, so that it makes it easy for others putting in your email signature, right, I use wise stamp as a way to do that, wisely.The value of your network is in keeping in daily touch. So you're Top of MindAnd whenever you want to contact someone, or whenever you post something on LinkedIn, or you send out a connection request, people go to your profile, one of the first things they look for, believe it or not, is recommendations.If you want to be successful on LinkedIn, and you're going to be a lot more successful with the more credibility you have. Obviously, the whole value of LinkedIn is that it's a public database, right. But understand that there are things you want to keep private about.You know, a lot of people say that LinkedIn is not an engaging platform, well, it's probably cuz they're not involved in LinkedIn groups, and LinkedIn groups are far the most engaging aspect of LinkedIn.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal has been in Japan these last few weeks, and he’s been thinking a lot about the power of mobile. This week Neal is talking about the social network that you can only engage in from mobile: Instagram. It’s important for businesses to find their visual voice and be original and organic on this platform. The beautiful thing about Instagram is it’s power to connect with people. So remember, don’t go for the hard sale on Instagram - instead, focus on personality, engagement, and authenticity.Key Highlights[00:53] My Thoughts on Instagram[03:47] Every Company Needs A Visual Voice[05:50] A Case Study of A Company Doing Well With Visual[08:57] Why Your Visuals Should Be Connected to Your Brand[09:11] Quote Images[12:04] Posting Event Images on Instagram[13:47] Videos As Part of Visual Voice[15:27] Popular TacticsNotable QuotesSo as I like to say, whenever I speak, every company needs a visual voice. And that visual voice is is the visuals that are going to represent you in Facebook, Twitter, and obviously, you know, any social network, but on Instagram and on sites like Pinterest, they're going to become your primary source of visual. And as I like to say, social media was made for people, not for businesses, so as a business, you're always going to be at a disadvantage. Therefore, the more organic you can become with your visual voice, I believe, the more effective the more successful you will be.If you have visual content, I don't think it's a challenge. The challenge is, for those that do not have a visual aspect to their product. And this is where you really need to think about how you're going to represent your brand on Instagram. It was because we had to post things that catch people's eyes, in order to grab their attention, get engagement and increase edge, and it was a tactical tool. You don't need those tactical tools on Instagram. So, yes, they are eye catching, those beautiful visuals are eye catching the quote, images are eye catching. But are they true to your brand? Right? Is there a more effective way of saying the same thing with a different image with a small number of words, and with more in the description that truly differentiates your brand from the others, because if not, your quotes are going to be lost in the sea of quotes are out there. A lot of people, a lot of businesses want to be on every social network. But does it make sense to be on every social network? Get people to connect with you on a personal basis. And then from there, once you see success by posting more business oriented visuals once in a while, you can then take the next step and start a business account. But I really think twice if you don't have a visual product.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This week Neal is coming to you from Japan, and he’s talking to Dennis Owen, from Cathay Pacific. The two are talking about Cathay Pacific’s extremely successful employee advocacy program, which Dennis launched simultaneously with their brand campaign “Life Well Traveled.” Dennis explains how he got the higher ups behind him, the platform they use, what kind of content is successful, and the rewards they give for engaging in the program. This is a great episode to listen to if you’ve been trying to figure out how to factor an employee advocacy program into your business plan.Key Highlights[00:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dennis Owen[03:05] How Dennis Got Into Employee Advocacy[05:40] How Employee Advocacy Started in Cathay Pacific[09:46] The Lack of Understanding in Employee Advocacy[10:36] The Planning Process[13:34] The Approach on Rewards[17:24] Measuring KPIs[20:18] Final Thoughts[22:57] Connect With DennisNotable QuotesAnd I think the main reason I wanted to do it is because it ties very nicely to our new brand campaign, which is called life all traveled. And as an airline, employees we traveled, we have the opportunity to travel for free. So we ourselves, live lives well traveled. And people are interested in travel, people liked to talk about travel, they'd like to see photos, and I thought what a great opportunity to tie internal brand advocacy to this new brand. Campaign life well traveled. So it's been a really nice fit.I think it's, it's a matter of just having something fun for people like, it doesn't have to be super expensive, because I think people that are, that are going to get involved with internal brand advocacy, are already sharing things. And they find the joy of that work that as well.When you look at a company like Cathay Pacific, we tend to be fairly understated. We're not a company that's out there bragging about ourselves. But there are other entities talking about us all the time, in terms of awards that we've gotten, or the new services. So I haven't found that that's been a real problem of finding content around Cathay Pacific and Dragonair. And sure, we have our own content, as well as we will definitely share that, like I said, with the lawful travel campaign.You know, we want people to understand that we're a premium airline. And there's value in terms of flying on Cathay Pacific Dragonair. So I think those were, you know, that's a it's a great story that I just wanted to share.Get out there and look and see what other people are saying about your brand. I think it's really valuable when you are able to share stories from other people, not the brand.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

When Neal first started speaking and blogging about social media, he focused on LinkedIn. But the platform has changed so much since the beginning, and of course the interactions and recommended use of it have evolved too. Today, Neal is talking about editing your LinkedIn connections. Not only is it important to comb through your current connections to edit out people who may not be relevant for you, but it’s also good to have some guidelines for accepting new requests. You want your LinkedIn to be curated so it’s productive, fun, and adds value to your life and business.Key Highlights [012:03] My Upcoming Free Ebook On LinkedIn[02:27] What Should You Do On Random Connection Requests?[03:02] LinkedIn Lions Defined[03:54] The LinkedIn Connection Policy[04:31] Why I Am No Longer A LinkedIn Lion[05:47] Time To Prune Your LinkedIn Connections! [06:15] Instances When You Can Accept Connection Requests From Strangers[07:20] Biggest Power of LinkedIn[08:34] What To Do If You Are Unsure About A Connection Request[09:07] Using New LinkedIn Requests to Prune Current LinkedIn Connections[10:34] Key Distinguishers[10:53] "Guilty By Association"[12:17] The People You Should Prune[14:46] ConclusionNotable QuotesThere's value to be had in meeting with people, and engaging with people that you've never met before in the physical world.But if there's a few people in your target industry, in your target geography, whatever it might be, that you can connect with that can really help gain new visibility, and potentially connectability, for lack of a better word into your target market or target company, very tactical advice.If you want to engage with them, do what I recommend, you know, social selling best practices, engage with their updates, right, follow them engage with their updates, go to the groups that they're a member of, see, if they've, you know, posted anything, get an introduction for a friend, if you really want to connect with them.But the real tangible value is if you were to request an introduction from them, are they going to step up to the plate for you? That's the key thing. And what this does is, it gives credibility to the fake profiles to the internet, slash social media marketers, and sort of the rotten eggs of LinkedIn that you probably don't want to be associated with, unless you, you know, want to sell to those people. But it gives them credibility, because it looks like you have a lot of mutual connection. And I'm going to recommend when you prune your LinkedIn connections, these are the people you want to prune. You want to prune those people that stay connected with the fake profiles, because they're giving you a false sense of social proof of all the other fake LinkedIn profiles out there.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This week on the podcast, Neal is sharing a new project with you. In his social media consulting business, he gets very broad and occasionally vague requests all the time, and there’s just no way he can help every person that reaches out. So Neal has decided to repackage the content he creates for trainings and make it available to more people. The first version of this is a 9-day online video workshop, complete with videos, worksheets, and a forum where you can chat with Neal. In this week’s episode you can learn more about why he’s starting this project, what this first version will be all about, and how you can join the party.Key Highlights[02:58] Role of Social Media[03:36] Questions You Need to Answer If You Want to Reach Foreign Audience[04:41] Always Have A Process In Place[05:18] The Social Media Center of Excellence[06:45] Understanding the Role of Content in Social Media[07:03] Content is the Game Changer[07:28] Different Types of Content[08:32] The Importance of Visual Content[09:00] The Role of Content Curation[09:32] Tools to Trade[09:57] Choosing the Social Network to Invest Your Time In[10:08] Paid Social[11:25] Social Media Is More Than Answering QuestionsNotable QuotesBecause at the end of it, and I hate to repeat myself, but social media replaces nothing complements everything. Without social media in the equation. How are you getting leads? How are you promoting your business? Do you even sell to foreign markets? And what I've learned over time, is that you need to have a process in place in order to test and measure and optimize what you do.I do want to go through the methodology because I think it can really help you. And it really begins with understanding the role of content in social media, I talk about the convergence of information and communication.Content is the game changer is the way that companies can level the playing field by offering unique, resourceful educational with entertainment value content. And that's why whenever we talk about what you're going to do on social media, whether it's that company looking to do outreach, or what have you, it's going to come down to the content, the content that they share the content that they use to engage in conversations.So you really got to decide what is going to be the easiest for you what makes the most sense for your product, and go through on that. And then we get to how we actually once we've decided on the different types of content, how to create content that's going to drive our social media program forward.It needs to be developed in a way that understands that social media was made for people, not for businesses. And businesses need to understand that and create compelling content that will be engaging in social media. Otherwise, your messages just look like spam to the average social media user, right.You need to pick the right tools of the trade that are going to help you not only in creating better content, but also in managing your social media and measuring your social media more effectively. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal is at the Corporate Social Media Summit this week, speaking and leading panels on all things social media and content creation. In this episode, he chats with Saul Leal, the Director of the Family Share Network, a group of Facebook pages, websites, and other social media accounts. They discuss how to create engaging content, how to monetize social media content and drive traffic to a website, and why publishing is more of a dialogue now than a monologue as it used to be.Key Highlights[01:07] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Sal Liao[01:41] Who is CompTIA[03:17] Sal's Business Model[04:33] The Concept of Alignment[07:45] How to Create Content that Feeds Special Moments[08:12] Concept of Passion Pages[09:04] Importance of Having Content that Resonates Audience[10:30] Connect with SalNotable QuotesBut the first thing is understanding the passion, the passion of our team, the passion and the vision of the organization, and ultimately, the passion of the consumer. And once we understand that passion, it's we provide engagement, and that engagement needs a purpose. And in our case, the purpose for social is driving traffic to our website.But I think that in the ecosystem of industries and the relationship of those industries, one actually succeeds on the internet one is really good at one thing.It's all about that loyalty. And the challenge has been publishers, they, they still think that publishing is a monologue. And what social media has brought it here was not it's not a monologue anymore, it's a dialogue.And anyone can can can do this passion pages is basically understanding what is the competitive advantage, what is the aggregated value that your brand brings, brings your users in our case, we will provide content for families, so anyone that loves their families should be green or content. And that's what we call pages. And it's really all about being from the computer in front of the analytics tool. And understanding why is the content that resonates with the audience, of course, and also taking consideration your own POV your own point of view in your strategy. You want people to share that content, to feel proud of that content and to feel that that content is so good in such a great way that a little bit of that content, it's part of them or they're part of that content in that way they share it. And for us. That's our objective.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

After talking with people all over the world about social media, today Neal is talking about content. Yes, content is important, but with an oversaturated market, it’s important that the content you are creating and sharing is legendary! So why not leverage successful content you’ve already created and used in the past? This week is all about why you shouldn’t be scared to repurpose old content, and how to best go about using what you’ve already got.Key Highlights[03:51] The Traditional Approach on Content Marketing[05:21] Every Content Should Be Legendary[07:58] Look At What You Have[09:41] The Strategy[12:47] The Execution[14:38] Killer Functionality of Post Planner[18:07] One of The Easiest Thing To Do To Scale[18:53] Easiest Way to Start Influencer Marketing ProgramNotable QuotesYou always want to keep your eye on those other networks and see where your community is. We know that social media marketing is not content marketing content in of itself is its own art. But in order to engage in social media, which is part content, part communication, businesses need content, right. And the content needs to be in different formats in different lengths, different mediums, depending on the network, and obviously our objective.Good content is not enough, stop spewing out good content,the content almost needs to be legendary.As social media marketers, we're always in this, for lack of a better word, we're always in flux as to, we need to stick with a certain calendar and create a certain amount of content for minimal engagement. But on the other hand, we only want to produce high quality content.If the content and the time is not there, don't just do it for the sake of doing it. And it serves as a good reminder.Part of the system is we want to have minimal effort to create the best and most awesome content. One of the ways we do that is we repurpose, we leverage what we have.It's really about asset management and going in and cataloging all of your assets, setting them up for repurposing, and then having a system in place that allows you to continue the repurposing of that almost automatically in terms of a process.It's important to understand that you want to make content that's 10 times better than anything else out there. And that should be the single most driving factor. But with Facebook, don't be afraid to repost that content again. And this is where you become less reliant on always having to create mediocre content to fit an editorial calendar. And you begin to scale because you're reusing content, you you're you're repurposing content, you're also reusing content to fill the engagement, the regular engagement needs that your social media channels have.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This week, I am coming to you from Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada where I keynoted Social Media Camp. At the event, I ran into my friend Mike Gingerich of TabSite. TabSite is a great tool that helps you run contests and capture leads, mostly on Facebook, but also on the web. It integrates with tons of common platforms like MailChimp, Infusionsoft, Canva, and Hootsuite, and it’s so easy to use. It’s a great way to grow your following, get shared on social networks, and engage with people. Learn more in this episode!Key Highlights[00:53] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mike Gingerich[01:29] What Is Topside?[03:12] How to Filter Out The Selection[04:17] Sweepstakes vs Sweeptakes Plus[07:24] Integration With Go To Webinar[09:04] Promotion Tools[09:40] Analytics Tool[10:57] Pricing[12:03] Mike's Advice on How Business Can Use Topside for Running Facebook ContestsNotable QuotesContests are a way of it's a way of engaging with your fanbase on a regular basis using all these different types of apps exists. We ramp up from there and including the fact where we have a small agency starting point where you can run one contest simultaneously on multiple Facebook pages. So that's helpful for businesses collaborating, or businesses with multiple locations.They need to be thinking about their engagement strategy. I mean, you have to be active on Facebook for your page. So it's sharing content that's quality, that's helpful. You have to look at using Facebook ads for some of your best content and, and the value of that is you get in front of more people. But the significant value is you get in front of the exact target audiences because it's a massive database. And Facebook ads allows you to drill into exactly who you want to be in front of and that's just totally a value. You need to be experimenting with video. Even if you're running a contest, you're posting that link but make a little video about that. A 25/32 video can get tremendous reach gets in front of a lot of people, and they can have a simple call to action that's free for you from Facebook loaded video driving them right to your your landing page.I think video is something that brands need to small businesses need to understand and experiment with.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Coming to you from the Women’s Business Symposium, sponsored by Comerica Bank, and benefitting Girls, Inc., this week Neal is discussing when to listen to advice, and when to ignore it. Last week, he held the event that he’s been talking about for months, the Social Tools Summit. It got him thinking about why it’s important to be unique in the world of business and social media. When planning the summit, Neal got lots of advice from his peers about how to run the event. Yes, it’s good to listen to advice from peers and role models, but it’s also good to know that you don’t always have to take that advice.Key Highlights[02:02] Creating the Idea for Social Tools Summit[02:41] Ignore Everyone Else[03:06] Why I Think the Social Tool Summit Was A Success[03:22] My Approach to Business and Social Media[04:42] Social Media Replaces Nothing But Compliments Everything[05:36] Data-Driven Approach[05:47] Leveraging Social Media As A Tool[06:36] You Need to Do Something Different[07:27] Lead Through Innovation[09:02] Social Media Center of ExcellenceNotable QuotesWith social media to say you got to do this, you got to do that. I don't think people are ill-intentioned when they give us this advice. But at the end of the day, you have to stick with what's right for you.Because if you're doing what everyone else has already done, you're not going to be successful, you have to do something different. And if you're true to your brand, and to your business, into your experience, into your capabilities into your limited resources, you will be able to do that.  But it's not going to come from a copy and paste effort. It's going to take some soul searching, it's going to take some experimentation. And everyone said it was unique, but I think they meant it in a good way, hopefully. But we did something different. Because I had a vision. And I felt there was a need in the market for this type of information, and executed on that vision. And I did not let anybody get in the way. I was a man on a mission. And that's actually always been my approach to business. And it's my approach to social media. And it's my approach to social media consulting. But at the end of the day, I want to do what's right. And that's the approach I want you to have for social media. The first one is social media replaces nothing but compliments everything. Social media is new tools, old rules, doesn't matter how late you are out of the game, doesn't matter how old you are. When you use social media as a business tool, those that have more business experience will tend to leverage social media as a tool more effectively.You may not want to be innovative. But to be successful, you need to do something different. And it's so important in social media, because we know how noisy it is, and almost any tactic that you can find by doing a Google blog search, you know, I'm sure any given businesses implemented, some may be more fitting for you than others.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today Neal is talking with Pawan Deshpande, the CEO and Founder of Curata. They discuss Curata on the eve of the Social Tools Summit in Boston. Curata provides tools that help marketers curate content and publish it many channels, as well as provide analytics, best practices, and machine learning to make content curation and creation easier and more effective. Curata can schedule content, build posts from relevant metadata, and even suggest images. Pawan also discusses the company’s history, the value of content curation, and the future of content curation and creation convergence.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal talks with Glenn Gaudet, the CEO and Founder of GaggleAMP. This tool helps companies and social media manager create employee advocates within their companies, and makes it easy for employees to share company-created social posts. They discuss how employee advocacy has grown, and how you can get started doing employee advocacy if you haven’t tried it yet. Glenn will be present at the Social Tools Summit in just a few weeks and also hosts AMPlify, the employee advocacy conference, directly after the Social Tools Summit in Boston.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal discusses an amazing tool that is used by serious social media marketers everywhere, Simply Measured. He’s talking to Ron Schott, the Director of the Professional Services Team at Simply Measured. This tool helps big brands and small companies alike reap the benefits of social media by understanding their analytics and planning future social media campaigns based on the measuring and reporting that Simply Measured provides. The tool also has the ability to track competitors and market sectors, plus so much more. These are the kinds of tools Neal is excited to introduce you to and conversations they’ll be having at the Social Tools Summit in just a few weeks.Key Highlights[01:23] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ron Schott[01:59] Who is Ron?[03:10] What is Simply Measured?[04:12] How Simply Measured Handles Data[05:03] Competitive Data from Simply Measured[0:41] Other Outside Data Simply Measured Brings in for Customized Reporting[06:13] Case Studies[07:50] The Latest Social Networks Simply Measured[09:00] Simply Measured's Ability to Measure Facebook Presence Globally[09:48] Paid Social Market[11:08] The Best Way to Get Started with Simply Measured[12:24] Connet with RonNotable QuotesWe're kind of edging out in those cases where people are looking more business solutions are looking more business goals, rather than specifically social goals. And so for us to tie those things back to, you know, end action, basket size, things like that, that's ultimately where we want to be getting to.But I can say we have, we have a number of our larger publishing clients, many that you probably visit every day, that are using our tools to then figure out you know, not only what type of stories are driving the most online interactions, and pageviews, and things like that, but what type of social content is better driving people to those stories?When you integrate that with conversion funnels, and what have you, you have complete visibility, right. And you know, what you need to do more of, and I think that's sort of the holy grail that companies tried to get out through piecing together, you know, different tools, and it takes a lot of time and it you know, I don't think they're able to see that complete picture like that you could do is simply measured.The most important takeaway is that simply measure continues to lead the field and continues to expand on what they do to provide more value to their customers, but thinking about not only using data for measuring and for ROI, or what have you, but feeding that back into the planning process. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Today Neal is introducing you to another social media tool that can help you reap the benefits of the wide world of social: Likeable Local. He’s talking Nicole Kroese, the Director of Marketing and Partnerships, about all the things Likeable Local can do and how it’s growing and changing. Likeable Local’s mission is to help businesses, especially small businesses, grow with social media. How? It makes it easy to create content with post templates and timely content at your fingertips. It also has metrics, so you can track your likes, looks, and leads generated by your social efforts. These are the kinds of tools Neal will introduce you to and conversations they’ll be having at the Social Tools Summit in just a few weeks.Key Highlights[00:38] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Nicole Cruz[01:29] Likeable Local's Mission[04:47] Lead Generation Part of Likeable Local[07:00] Measuring and Reporting[08:21] Business Criteria That Likeable Local Will Be A Good Fit For[09:57] Opportunities for Large Brands and Franchises[10:45] Where to Access Free Tool[11:45] Issues That Businesses Have With Social Media That Likeable Local is Working on Solving13:01] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesAnd most of all, it's the idea that, you know, I think most small business owners know that social media is something you need to be doing, you know, they're bought into that idea. But you know, what they still think is that it's hard, it's going to be challenging, it's going to be expensive, it's going to be really time consuming. But you know, what they still think is that it's hard, it's going to be challenging, it's going to be expensive, it's going to be really time consuming. And what we're striving to do is to give them the tool that has the gives them the access to make it easy to make it not so hard, and to make it effective without having to spend countless hours all the time.I think those two key things, you mentioned that the content creation, curation is probably the most resource intensive thing you need to do in social, but also the amplification, whether it is you know, through organic through the repeating of things at optimal times or through paid advertising.And the idea here is that you can drive people straight from social and email them really seamlessly there. And you know, a referral is really one of the best gifts a customer can give you, you know, it's the best gift.They need something that is a little bit easier and kind of, you know, done for them. So simple. And that's what we want to deliver.I think that that's always going to be the challenge is seeing that ROI from social media directly. So you know, creating really, really smart reporting, content suggestions based on their their internet activity and their preferences. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This week, Neal Schaffer interviews Chad Abbot of Abbson Live. Chad will be joining the Social Tools Summit next month, and Neal wanted to talk to him about the powers of video. We know that video is an incredibly powerful marketing tool, and we know that live streaming can be helpful for events, but Chad shared some other ways that live video can be used in your marketing strategy. Use of video across platforms is growing, and now is the time to jump in and try it for yourself!Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This week Neal Schaffer introduces you to Oktopost and the man behind it, CEO and Founder Daniel Kushner. Oktopost is another great social media management tool that specializes in B2B services, tracking relationships and helping you target your marketing. They’ll soon be launching an employee advocacy program as well, helping companies simplify the advocacy process. Learn more about Oktopost, and where Daniel sees social media being used in the sales process in this week’s episode.Key Highlights[00:41] Introduction to Podcast Guest, Daniel Kushner[01:26] Difference Between B2bB, Social Media and Consumer-Facing Social Media[03:03] Top 5 Things That B2B, and Social Media Marketers Should be Measuring[05:28] The Problem With Attribution[07:11] The Different Integrations Oktopost Currently Supports[10:01] Daniel's Experience with Marketing Automation from their Customers[11:43] Case Studies[12:25] Daniel's Vision on the Market for the Next 6-1 Months and on their Product[16:31] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesIn every company, the lead is something which is, is different. And maybe it's the same name, but every company has a different meaning of that name, right? The most basic is somebody leaving their information in the system, at minimum, the email, and that becomes a lead.Where do we get this lead from? I think one of these metrics is one of the hardest today for marketers to measure. Because it's a very vague question, where are my leads coming from?So it's very hard for the marketer exactly understand where the leads are coming from, although it's one of the most critical things that we need to measure, especially because it's not all linear. It's not all a single point of contact. I think we, if you're looking at the marketing funnel, social media is used in two places. One, it's used for traffic generation. So to the very top of the funnel, we might say that the first touch point, and it's also used in the middle of the funnel to engage with prospects and into an even customers to push them through the funnel itself.As a marketer, you can now see which social content is now not only generating traffic to third party websites, like Wall Street Journal, in this case, but also ending up as, as good lead generators on your website.We definitely very strongly recommend that even if you're using a platform like OB supposed to run your advocacy, that you find somebody who can help you run the program, if it's not something that you have the knowledge and expertise in house, because doing it right, because, you know, when you're testing tools, and you know, marketers, they're like testing new technology and testing things out. And if things fail, that's okay marketing, but we're we're we're taking our technology and our new ways of doing things and expanding this across different employees, they might be less tolerant to things going wrong, and things are working smoothly. So creating a very vigorous and thought out program is not less important than just picking the right technology.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

At the Social Media Marketing World event in San Diego last week, Neal Schaffer met all kinds of great people, one of them being Emeric Ernoult. Emeric is the CEO and Co-Founder of Agora Pulse, an engagement dashboard tool for Facebook and Twitter. Agora Pulse allows you to track the most important fans and interactions on social, gathering data unlike any other tool. Luckily, Emeric is going to be joining the Social Tools Summit in Boston in May. Listen to learn more about this great tool, what inspired its creation, and other tools that Emeric loves.Key Highlights[01:22] Introduction to Podcast Guest, Emeric Ernoult[02:40] Business Value of Agorapulse[08:51] How to Get Started With Agorapulse[09:31] Agorapulse Functionalities[10:42] Why You Should Use Agorapulse[13:03] Historical Tweet Feature[14:57] Other Agorapulse Facebook Features[17:10] Agorapulse Plans[18:34] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesBasically save time by engaging with the people who are really, really matter for your business. And were the most important people for your business. That was the way so like, focus on the most important people. And that's my big vision. That's my thing. And at the end of the day, when I look at what I've created with Social, I'm left with nothing. I've just created the feeling that I had to be there and I did my job. That's it. And and we thought this is a big problem, because it shouldn't feel that way. It should feel like I've done something useful for my business, I've done something that is an asset that is a value.And that's the key with the right people to make sure that when those right people get to consider what you're doing or when those right people are your client and have to consider buying something else or you know, another tool that they have those relationships in mind and to think twice, before leaving.We make sure you know what you're building in terms of quality relationship with the right people, things simple we're at 90% they're building the quality and identifying the right people you've you're building relationships with, I'd say we're 65% there and we have a lot still love to build.And at the end of the day, we can rank your user we can score your user and user scoring is really one thing we're working on very hard and doing a lot of r&d. And that's where the identifying the most important user for your business will come into the picture.I love all my competitors. That's number one. And I invite embrace them. And I invite them to come and have a beer with me and chat about our metrics and how we're doing and how they're doing and exchange advice and tips and share experiences. And yeah, there is some some kind of an overlap.But you know, their key strength is really on content discovery, and we're absolutely not doing this. And we'll never do that. Yes, yes. And our keys transform the engagement and the reporting and all that stuff. And they'll never do that either. So it's kind of there, where they're good at, we're not good at and vice versa. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This episode brings you into the atmosphere of the CeBIT Global Conference, where Neal Schaffer met Steven Zielke, who helped found the Rock the Blog event. But that’s not the only thing he’s founded: enter Blappsta, a new app that can turn your blog into its own native app. Neal is very excited about this app, and even more excited to share it with you. Blappsta provides yet another medium to access your readers in this increasingly mobile world, holding your hand through the registration, allowing you send push notifications, and above all, becoming the provider of your own app.Key Highlights[02:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Steven Zielke[02:25] What is Rock the Blog[04:25] The Issue Steven Found and How He Developed the Tool[06:45] Feedback on Blappsta[09:12] Steven's Vision[10:21] Blappsta Cost[10:54] What Makes Blappsta Interesting[11:39] Companies Steven Are Working With[12:27] Becoming a Mobile SocietyNotable QuotesAnd it's for you, it's something really nice because you have that direct communication to your loyal readers, you can push out to them and you instantly can can generate their reading onto your content. And for you, it doesn't matter is an app is a website, it shouldn't matter. It's your content that's relevant. So all we do is really giving another medium.Well, you've mentioned the most important part, that's notifications. And first of all, you have the notification on the on your fingertip. It's not us it's not the system or anything you can decide, I want to send a push notification. I mean, really, it's the the app world is, is changing in that respect. And then Google has laid a benchmark, again, trying indexing apps, and really tells us that they are interesting, interested in looking into the app and make it a part of their Google world. And that's, it's not about the technology app, it's about the content that lies in the app. But I think the potential of when you have mobile visitors of having the mobile visitors say with there's an app available, would you like to download it and have been able to send out notifications. This is what every every company wants is its were becoming a notification economy. And I think that's a really, really powerful aspect about this as well.If there's something that you need to get the word out to your employees. How do you do it? Well, there's nothing better than a notification on smartphone because we know everyone's eyeballing that.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This week is a special episode, recorded at the CeBIT Global Conference (CGC) in Hannover, Germany. Neal Schaffer spoke and participated in this great event, and had such a good time sitting down to speak with Ingo Stoll about the role information technology can play in social media. This episode takes a step back from the usual more applicable advice and looks at the bigger picture, including the current state of social media, and the future of the industry.Key Highlights[00:25] Introduction to the Interview with CGC Radio[04:24] The Future of Social Media is Now[05:36] Evolution of Social Business[05:58] Social Media is a Two-way Conversation[09:09] Disruptive Technology[11:40] The Importance of Keeping Your Employees Happy[16:05] Change Agent[18:09] Lessening the Gap Between Consumer and BrandNotable QuotesSo it's less about speaking and getting 1000 questions or about people tweeting you out, but it's more about the audience is extremely influential.So instead of thinking about the future, it's there, it's now people are using these platforms. And if you're not engaging with people there, then maybe your competitors aren't right. And the big social data, it's there to be tapped into.It's less about thinking about the future and really getting busy and hunkering down and creating a strategy and looking at all the potential and figuring out what makes sense for your company to do. Social business is a place where you know, social media, like the internet, it just sort of overlaps everything your company does, and every department, and companies need to be thinking about that.  When you create a social media strategy, it's critical that you include every department in that strategy, and that every department has a say, and in the future, you know, more and more departments are going to be using social media in more and more different ways. Social is the public media, it is the ultimate media that represents who we are. And people are not only your customers, but they're your employees, right? So it becomes sort of a, you know, a natural central focus.Social media is bringing departments together, it's breaking down silos, and with employee advocacy, and we'll talk about this tonight at your event, obviously, but it's tapping into who we are as a company, what is our brand?Change is not enough anymore, we need transformation. And that brings it to the point that the changes we see are so substantial, that just adopting things is not enough anymore. It's really disruptive. What happens and it puts great pressure, great chances on the one hand, but great pressure on the leaders, and the managers of the organizations of today. So when you put it all together, it becomes a great representation. And it changes the organism of a company to a collection of people that work together for a common purpose, which is how it should have been in the first place. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Many companies invest in using a customer relationship management tool, or CRM, such as Salesforce. But there’s a free tool at your fingertips that you need to take advantage of: LinkedIn. LinkedIn has plenty of functions like searching and tagging that allow you to keep track of and maintain your professional relationships, sometimes better than CRM tools that are already out there. After collecting boxes of business cards for many years, Neal Schaffer decided it was time to take the plunge and use LinkedIn as his CRM. In this week’s episode, he explains why you should do the same.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Some people say that guest blogging is dead, but Neal Schaffer disagrees. Content curation is a great way to have enough content to share, and it’s beneficial for both business and the content creators. How? This week, Neal talks about the importance of building those relationships between brands and influencers: how organizations can strategically partner with bloggers, and work with them to create a mutually beneficial relationship that leverages each of their networks. Key Highlights[01:40] Two Parts of Social Media[02:09] What is Guest Blogging?[02:36] Why Blog Owners of Businesses Want to Have Guest Bloggers[03:17] Looking at Guest Posting in Two Different Aspects[05:35] The ROI of Blogging[07:00] Save Your Best Content for Blog[07:32] What to Look for in a Guest Blogger[08:56] Why I Created Maximize Your Social Business[10:40] Stick to Unique Content[12:18] Guest Blogging for Brands[12:37] It's All About Food ChainNotable QuotesWe all know that social media is the convergence of information and communication.And blog owners or businesses with blogs want to have guest bloggers because it helps lessen the burden of content creation, and it's part of a social media program that is probably going to be the most time or resource-intensive part of your operation.You want to work your way up the food chain, because people don't scale your time is limited. And if you can only have time to write one or two guest posts a month, you want to do it, where you're going to get the most bang for your buck, or in this case, bang for your content to your time. I really want to have my best content, I maximize social business, but every once in a while if a company reaches out to me, and I haven't guest posted for them before, I will do that if I think it helps me yield thought leadership. You know, it opens up a new crowd to me, and it helps me build a relationship with that company. I'm all about relationships, and that's sort of my background in b2b sales and that's what's helped carry me far in social media.And when I do things, I want to do things big, you know, I think it was pro blogger Darren Rose, who said, Whenever you guest blog, you want to save your best content for guest blogs, because that's where you reach a new audience.You want a guest blogger that is obviously an expert in what they do. You want them to write about content that's relevant to your site. And hopefully, you want them to be so proud of their content, that they're going to share it as well, so that you get to access this new network.And so it really got me thinking and when I started getting more and more of these requests, I thought to myself, you know, I don't want a one night stand with content creators. It leaves no value for a blog to have just one contribution from one person.Well, by all of us getting together and sharing each other's content, through our unique networks, we can reach just a broader audience. And it's about the platform. And that's where I went from window networking to maximize social business when I realized that it wasn't my blog anymore. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I get a lot of requests from various businesses saying, “We’re behind on our social media, and we need help.” A lot of these calls for help are coming from people with small businesses, so today I want to discuss some of the options that are available for you, such as working with consultants, agencies, and virtual assistants. We know that social media requires its own set of skills, so it’s important to be willing to dedicate the time to educate and the money to get you access to resources that can help take your business to the next level.Key Highlights [02:20] The Business of Social Media[03:13] The Challenges That Businesses Have with Social[07:27] Where Do I Fit In the Challenges?[07:35] Services I Offer[10:05] Why I've Been Doing Social Media Consulting[11:21] The Reality of Social Media Consulting[12:16] My Response to Businesses Reaching Out to Me[13:12] My Philosophy on the Business of Social MediaNotable QuotesYou know, social media is not like SEO, or web design where it's purely technical. It's not like an ad campaign where here's some money, send me some creatives I'll prove one and send me the leads or, you know, if it's just print or you may not have leads, just show me the magazines after you publish them. And it's obviously very different because it requires a lot of messaging. And you know that that messaging really goes deep into who you are, what you know what type of company you are, what is your brand about. And that's really the hard thing.But the unifying aspect of both of these is, I only work with companies that are willing to invest some time in educating themselves and wanting to do it themselves, or at least managing the process themselves so that they can manage the people that they hire.You obviously need to make a living. And people can't scale. So if you hire people go to agency route, you need to be able to charge a decent amount in order to be able to scale as a human being right? If you go to consultant route, well, you need to be able to get paid what you're worth, and you're probably worth a lot more than what a lot of businesses are willing to pay you. And this, this is the challenge.So you know, my reply to when these businesses reach out to me is, hey, it's one you know, one of three ways, do a Google for social media management services, blindly throw the money, hopefully, you'll find some good look for a virtual system.One of his brands is called Abundance marketing. And I love that term, because there really is no competition. I know that some potential competitors are listening to this podcast, maybe you're taking notes, maybe you're learning from it, and it's helping your business. And that's great. I love it. I love helping people, even if you're in the same industry, because you know what? It comes down at the end of the day to relationships? Who are the customers that you have? What relationships do you have with them? Because if I don't have a relationship with them, and you do, I'm not going to get the business anyway, doesn't really matter. Right? Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal has talked a lot about the benefits of social selling and some of you are farther down the road of creating a successful social selling program than others. Social allows you to create connections faster and contact prospects you otherwise might not have been able to. If you haven’t started your social selling journey yet, this week Neal wants to help you begin. It can seem overwhelming, but Neal breaks it down, starting by creating the infrastructure and leveraging LinkedIn profiles, connections, recommendations and groups. Key Highlights[01:18] What Is Social Selling[04:45] 5 Things You Should Be Doing For A Successful Social Selling Infrastructure[04:57] Why Your LinkedIn Profile Is Important[05:53] Connecting Your Database[07:16] Get Recommendations![10:26] Rules for Endorsements[11:25] Setting Up Your Infrastructure GroupNotable QuotesSocial selling is not social media marketing, you know, selling marketing sort of the same. It is equipping your salespeople with using social media as another tool in their toolbox to help them do whatever salespeople do, find new leads, get referrals, introductions in the organizations, map out organizations, trying to close deals faster, try to get more money for deals or whatever it might be.So your social selling infrastructure begins with your LinkedIn profile. We all know that more business decision-makers yours use LinkedIn for professional purposes than any other social network, right. So with that in mind, everything you do within that LinkedIn environment, all is going to link back to your profile. That's what your profile and I always say, it's like your websites, for your professional career, it really is.The value of networking is in networking outside of people in your network, because you already know the people in your network, but you connect with them on LinkedIn, that's great. But it's who they know.And we never know were the people we partied with in college, you know, our roommates, people in the high school with people that we started out working with 125 10, 20. 25, 30 years ago, you never know where they end up in life. But once you connect with your database in LinkedIn, you've now created a way of always being able to contact them, regardless of if their email changes, and discovering those hidden connections when we do the advanced people search.The thing with endorsements, though, is they're attached to skills. And if you say you have experience in something, and it's not showing up and skills, and on the other hand, you know, underwater basket weaving is showing up as a skill that you have 99 endorsements for, there might be a branding problem there.In recommendations, you're not going to ask people for endorsements, it is not that value, if you're going to ask someone for their support, you want to ask them for recommendation, because the endorsement really is a Facebook like, but you know what, whenever you go to a LinkedIn profile of a connection, LinkedIn is always beckoning you to endorse them, endorse them, it sends a social signal, it's not going to do any harm, because hopefully, you know them well.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

You’ve heard about Neal Schaffer’s Social Tools Summit that he’s launching this May in Boston, but maybe you haven’t heard why he’s creating this event. Aiming to educate organizations about the social tools that are available, the goal of this event is to close the gap between customer understanding and company potential. By bringing vendors, CEOs, and potential clients into the same room, everyone can gain insight into the value of these tools and how to leverage them. In this episode, delve into the importance of in-person interaction, sharing stories, and showcasing your subject matter expertise.Key Highlights[01:50]  Why I Am Doing Social Media Conferences[03:14] Real-time Interaction Between People Is Better [05:07] The Other Side of Content Marketing That I Was Doing As A Salesperson[06:38] Get Your Stories Out[07:04] The Gap I Found[09:44] Scaling Through Tools[11:53] A Greater TruthNotable QuotesAnd just like, you're not going to learn everything from reading one book, you're if you read books, you read a lot of books, and maybe multiple books on the same subject. I think it's the same with social media conferences, there's room for everybody should have their own unique take on what type of events it should be, who you want to target, and what type of experience you want to provide or what have you. So events are something that I've always wanted to do.And you know, I've always thought that social was about the human touch. And it still is today, right? And we talked about the humanizing and HGH and, and all these different concepts, but at the end of the day, it comes down to people. So the summit really came about because I wanted to utilize my experience and figure out how do I add value to the industry.I'm passionate about the education as you all know, it's all about making my clients, making my readers, my listeners you more self sufficient in your own practice, in social media, whether it be for marketing, or sales, or PR, customer support, whatever it might be.I tell you, great salespeople are also great storytellers. And if they're not great storytellers, usually in order to move a deal forward, they bring in people internally who are great storytellers.But I realized there was a gap between what the customer understood about our company, and tools and what they can do. And what we knew we could do in marketing, the marketing message, and what have you, it was not bridging that gap. Only when the customers started to use our product, would they get it but even if they used our product in a different way, they wouldn't see the other potential benefits. Because with social media, you have the ability to promote anything. Without social media, promoting the social tools summit would have been really, really hard, I would have had to rely on traditional media, it would have required money, it would have required a paid effort in order to scale with social not necessarily, although the paid helps accelerate things.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What is the relationship between social selling and employee advocacy? Neal goes deep into describing the evolution of social business and how it is bringing sales and marketing together with the emergence of these new trends, together with practical advice on how to align your sales and marketing departments for social selling success.Key Highlights[01:01] Different Types of Convergence of Trends[04:19] The Evolution of Social Media[05:41] What We See Now[06:01] Where Employee Advocacy Began[07:02] How Should We Use Employee Advocacy[08:13] Sales Methodologies[09:11] What Happens in Sales Trading[12:26] One of the Things I Learned About Sales and Marketing[14:53] Everything Needs to Be CraftedNotable QuotesI always talk about community managers being like the ultimate quarterbacks in your organization, having to strategize where to throw the ball, do I hand it off?And, and now what we see as more and more professionals are using social media, and we're all probably using it a little bit more professionally than we did a year or two ago. And with more internal departments using it, there's obviously a lot more collaboration that happens naturally. And I do believe part of that natural collaboration is a collaboration between sales and marketing.If we're going to do employee advocacy, we can't force people to use social media, we want to be able to work together with those internally that are number one fans of our company, ideally, but number two, that already on social media that would naturally see the benefits the value in sharing our messages to the world because it enhances their personal branding, it makes them look like an expert, or what have you.The recommendation for social selling is that you want to be sharing content, ideally, you know, part of the content is coming from your own company. Marketing now has to deliver content. And it's, you know, the alignment is just not about social selling is about employee advocacy in general. You want to create content that others in your organization want to share, because it helps them look better, whatever it might be, whatever reason they're in for doing it.Everything needs to be crafted, as if it was an art because your employees branding are all on the line and  I'm hoping that those in marketing are opening up to that and taking a lot more serious look at the messages they make for employee advocacy, over those general marketing messages that your general outward facing marketing messages that you have.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Where should you focus your social media efforts and budget in 2015? In this episode, Neal Schaffer encourages you to start the year by analyzing your content and process. This means helping you find more places to share your content, explaining the importance of internal education and ownership, and advocating for systems that help you amplify your strategies, like paid social and automation.Key Highlights[02:01] My First Social Media Conference -- Social Tools Summit[03:10] My List of 9 Things You Should Focus Your Social Media Efforts On In 2015[03:40] Number #1: Content[04:07] A Positive Move In The Evolution of Content Marketing[05:47] Central Content[07:05] Type Of Visual Content You Can Use[08:42] Why Mobile Personal Line Is Emerging[10:35] Have A Process If You Want To Scale[12:09] My Advocacy[12:49] What's Fueling Employee Advocacy Storm[13:56] Ownership[16:14] Start Exploring Paid SocialNotable QuotesAnd what I'm going to be talking about is really an extension of that, because some things have changed, but a lot really hasn't. And it takes time for people. And sometimes technology to catch up with some of the trends that I see. And therefore, I don't see it as repetition. I see it as a further evolution of things in 2015. Some of these have evolved more rapidly or are more mainstream than others. But either way, there's always room for improvement for optimization.You can't talk about marketing these days without talking about content marketing. And you almost can't talk about content marketing without talking about social media marketing, and social media marketing and content marketing as well. With the convergence of information, communication, brands and companies need to have content to engage with people, right. And that's just a fact. It's a fact of social media.I believe with most companies, whether it's social media strategy alignment, whether it's a choice of platform, whether it's voice, or just the content itself, or even the frequency of the content, there's always little tweaks you can do to further optimize and improve upon it.So visual is very important on a number of different levels.Mobile is prevalent, and in some communities are some target user audiences with demographics, they spend more time on mobile than on the web. So being active and social considering that a lot of people do social from a mobile phone, or smartphone, I should say is a start is part of a mobile strategy.If you don't have a process, you don't have a product. And you need to have a process around your social media. So you can scale you can teach others to do it. And what is really fueling the employee advocacy storm right now, from a lot of clients that I have is social selling is the hidden gap between getting salespeople to be sharing marketing content into their networks and to brand themselves as experts to generate more inbound leads to create deeper relationships with their clients.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Is your social media strategy stuck in "2011 social media?" Let Neal help guide you through how to re-measure your social media ROI and reallocate your precious resources for your social media program in 2015.Key Highlights[02:53] The Market Is Becoming More Fragmented[03:20] Think ABout Your Social Media On A Channel By Channel Basis[03:50] Calculate Your ROI From Each Platform[04:24] Simple Exercise to Calculate Your ROI[05:57] Start Reaching Out To Other Networks[07:30] Top 15 Platforms In The United StatesNotable QuotesBut, you know, I really want you to calculate what is your cost per whatever to acquisition, cost per engagement, cost per new follower, whatever it is, we can calculate a few metrics from our own participation in social media.And that data really should be your data for 2015. And this is what's going to help you get unstuck. Because at the end of the day, your activity on social media channels should almost be like a dashboard, you're going to be raising a lever that, you know, like a mixing board at a recording studio, for lack of a better word.I want you for the first few months of the year to try a new network a month, or reinvest strategically, in an old network a month, whatever it is, you have a large choice in networks. And I want you to think niche.And with those metrics in hand, for your ROI, and by trying out all the different communities that exist in social, hopefully, it's going to help you find a sweeter spot for what you're doing. And you're going to learn a heck of a lot in the process, about your content, about what content is resonating with who and about all these different communities not knowing which is going to be the biggest provider of ROI for your company in 2015.It will be shown more prominently in the feed when you have a photo, visual content is going to be key for your company 2015, to be effective in visual social networks, and to be more effective, and to be heard above the noise in the other social networks that you're in. And there's a lot of different types of visual content you can create. But you need to be thinking visual, and you need to do it now, before everyone else does it. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal introduces the how, what, and why of the first social media event in which he will be curating and co-producing to serve the social media industry: The Social Tools Summit in Boston in May, 2015.Key Highlights[02:05] An Announcement of A Big News[03:23] Why I Enjoy Speaking[04:08] My LinkedIn Group[04:33] Social Media Conferences that I Have Attended[07:33] What Is My Favorite Tool?[08:18] Tools Are Important[10:08] First Social Tool SummitNotable QuotesBut I'll talk about that I realized the need, you know, what, what do you want to do when you grow up? What well, how can I help companies and social media? What do I want to do? What am I passionate about? And it's really a combination of two things, strategy and education.But speaking is one of my favorite things, because I have the ability to really interact with a lot of people over a little bit of time, and know that I'm helping people on scale, right, which with a one to one coaching session is just a different feel, although that's very rewarding and gratifying experience as well.So the combination of someone that can handle that side, and then myself where I can actually, you know, create the content, curate the speakers, engage with the sponsors, and create a one of a kind, albeit on a very, very small scale, a very different, but one of a kind, extremely valuable event for the community businesses that want to take their social media to the next level.And I think marketers in general, this is gonna seem weird, but I think marketers in general, concentrate too much on the tools, the tools, once you have the strategy in place, and you know, what you need to do organically, right?So the tools is is an important part. And even though I think that sometimes some marketers just rely purely on the tools without realizing that you need to have the strategy, the education and the experience of working these platforms organically. To fully understand the value of the tools, the tools are still important, I use a variety of tools of shared some of these maximize social business. And that's really the information that I want to provide that to the event that I want to provide to senior marketers, executives, agencies, that they can either reassess the tools that they're currently using, or really understand these are the tools they should be using, by getting introductions to them through panels, case studies, not not vendors pitching tools, but in a unique way in which this is where I want to bring my own valueLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Now that you see the value in publishing on LinkedIn, should you simply republish your blog's content on LinkedIn? Or ... ? Neal responds to the question point-blank with advice to help you better understand, leverage, and maximize your LinkedIn content marketing.Key Highlights [01:07] Should You Publish the Same Content On LinkedIn As You Do On Your Website?[02:09] Why Numbers Are Important[03:23] The Potential of LinkedIn[04:42] Where Thought Leadership Begins[06:00] How You Can Replicate Your Content[07:00] Why Copy-Pasting Is Not A Good Idea[07:57] The Danger of Publishing Everything On Your Linkedin[08:30] Customize Your Content for Each Platform![10:48] What You Should Be Thinking When Creating Content Marketing on LinkedIn[11:34] Join My Facebook Group!Notable QuotesAnd the numbers are important, because when you do the analysis of blog posts for your own website, how many views are you getting?With LinkedIn, you have a very, very lucrative demographic that may find you as well. It's a demographic of decision makers. It's a very, very well defined demographic versus what you have online, which could be a lot of different things.That's really where thought leadership begins. It begins with people. It's about human interaction.So I think that it's a great strategy, that you create content specific for the LinkedIn audience, on the LinkedIn publishing platform, if you're able to different shape that content with more general content on your blog that is less targeted towards a lucrative demographic of business decision makers and more targeted to a general online audience of those who may find you through search, you can start to see how you can, you know, leverage segmentation of your content, so that you're really you know, publishing the right content for the right platform.I think the danger of publishing everything on your blog, again, on your LinkedIn profiles, you could actually be losing traffic to your LinkedIn profile, we all know the conversion is going to happen on your website, not your LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn profile should be an additional and augmentive channel for your content marketing for your social media marketing.And I don't think that content is as easy it just slicing and dicing it, you really need to customize it for each platform. And there are areas in which you may need to create unique things for each platform.With the LinkedIn Pulse publishing platform, I think it is a similar approach of creating unique content for that community, which showcases the thought leadership of your company through your employees, and making it very specific to the community there.So when you think of content marketing on LinkedIn, think LinkedIn Pulse, and think employee advocacy. Instead of thinking, should I just copy my blog posts and put them on LinkedIn, we should be approaching that in a different way, and asking different questions to get to the best way of leveraging LinkedIn, for your social media marketing. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal gives a preview of his upcoming one day workshop in Bucharest, Romania by focusing in on those advanced social media marketing concepts that you need to dive into to help you raise your social media to the next level.Key Highlights [02:23] One Day Social Media Event in Bucharest, Romania[03:27] How I Help Businesses Get to the Next Level[04:02] Elementary Workshop[05:38] It All Starts With the Content[06:00] Your Content Should Always Be Aligned With Your Brand Objective, Identity, and Culture[06:15] Think About Your Social Voice[07:21] Social SEO[07:56] Ways to Use Paid Social[08:49] Experimental Social[09:17] Revamp Your Social Media Strategy[09:57] Analyze Your Social[10:22] Importance of Having Baseline Metrics[11:30] Social Selling[12:33] Expanding Social Media Through Advocacy[12:46] 3 Big Ways of Looking at Advocacy[13:27] Talking About Employee AdvocacyNotable QuotesThat's, you know, social media at the beginning of its evolution is just something that you do because everyone else is doing it. And there's still a lot of companies in United States, probably majority of companies that are still doing this without a strategy, just throwing things up, not really measuring or maybe measuring the wrong things. And really not knowing how well they're doing what they could be doing better, or what is their ROI.If you do a deep dive analysis of each one of these for your business, and I think each one requires a deep dive to better understand it and understand the potential, you'll get a better idea as to how you can help bring your own social media to the next level.I always talk about social media being the convergence of information communication, what is the content? Is the content represent your brand? Better yet? Does the content represent your objective? And often we find we begin social media programs with content that aligns with our objectives. And somehow over time, that content gets misaligned. And when we talk about tone, we don't talk about font or font size, or font style. When we talk about visual, we start to talk about these things and colors and what types of subjects are going to best resonate with your target audience and be best aligned with your content, your objective, obviously, this is no easy thing to do. This is something that we should all be working towards. And the only way to find out about this is really through experimenting, to understand what works and what doesn't work. But we should always not just be throwing content out there, but seeing how we can appear more prominently how we can be seen by more people organically. Are we including experiments? And I consider campaigns really a type of experiment on a specific or a group of social networks to test out certain types of content or engaging with a certain target audience. And are we doing enough of this? Because if we're not, we're never really going to be able to best optimize our social media presence.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal shares best practices with social media campaigns by showcasing Passion Planner's Kickstarter campaign and what can be learned from it.Key Highlights [01:40] What's the Best Social Media Campaign for Me?[02:45] What Are the Best Practices in Creating Campaigns?[03:45] The Passion Planner[05:58] One of the Things I Like About The Passion Planner[07:54] The Kickstarter Campaign (Mini Version)[10:05] Why I Think The Passion Planner Is A Great Tactic[10:37] Other Interesting Things About the Passion Planner[12:38] The Social Good Component[13:56] My View on Social Media CampaignsNotable QuotesSo you know, what that brings us to is that people are the best sellers, people associate the best with people. And it's the people centric part of this, which really draws people especially if you are trying to attract consumers, I guess it will work for b2b as well. But so it's the person and it's their story. And they go through why they created this product, how it helped them how they think it can help you.  I have so much belief that passion planner can be a catalyst to change someone's life that I feel that anyone should be able to use it regardless of their financial ability.We believe that anybody should get access to it. If you believe in the product, even if you don't want to invest, just have a share, we'll give you something. I think that is a great tactic. Once again, there is a strong human element here that ties into our emotions. With social good, we all want to feel good about it. But if you thought that was enough, no, there's more here.But I want you to see a social media campaign. And rarely a Kickstarter campaign that creates a tie a human tie and emotional bond with the person who created the product through the video that authentically allows you to get something free, even if you don't want to invest in the project, because you might be interested in the product allows you to do that by authentically sharing on any you know, any social media channel that you want. And when you mentioned the word community, obviously, you better have a community otherwise, I don't think it's going to resonate with people. I believe that this product does have it through all of the things that they're doing. And I think that once you have that strong community, it's going to help propel future success, as in creating new products, new Kickstarter campaigns for promotion, whatever this brand decides to do.And this whole community aspect that we are here because of our community, we want to support our community that really permeates itself throughout everything that they say on their website. And that's just a brilliant example that I think is is really, really hard for a lot of companies to emulate. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

This episode goes into depth on what a pre-sales social media consulting call would look like, and with that six ideas to improve your social media that go above and beyond social media.Key Highlights[02:04] Importance of Social Proof[03:10] What Should You Do to Acquire More Followers?[03:37] Let's First Work on Your Message[04:24] People Need to Have A Crystal Clear of What You Do When They View Your Website[05:18] What I Find In A Lot of Startup Businesses[05:52] Utilizing Your Employee Through Employee Advocacy Program[06:50] What is Affiliate Marketing[08:02] Integrating Affiliate Marketing Into Your Website[08:42] Step #3: Build Your List[09:35] Step #4: Blog[10:07] Leveraging the Visual[11:08] Paid SocialNotable QuotesI'd rather have a small army of passionate fans than a large army of crickets.And you may see success stories of some companies that were lucky in the right place at the right time had that one special person find their content and share it to their million followers. But for 99.99% of us, that really doesn't happen. If it did happen, it would just be too easy.For me, the social media followers, yeah, you can use social media to help amplify your message. But what is your message, let's first work on that.And that's why with social media, your websites are more important than ever.Once again, instead of trying to have you go against the world, you then as part of your program, begin to do a blogger outreach program or influencer marketing campaign where you start to reach out to people and say, hey, you know, I have a product that I think would be genuinely aligned with what you do for a living, would you be interested in it.But genuinely having people promote your product and sharing the wealth with them. And if they believe in your product, they will do that, right.All you need is a handful of them in social media that can really help amplify your message in a way that you yourself can't because you're a brand and they're a person, and they already have a loyal following. How can I leverage the visual to create a magnet, that's going to be not only more engaging with my readers, but also that I can utilize social media to help draw more people to my content to my presence? I'd rather you complement your organic efforts with a little bit of paid, you know, five bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks on Facebook, can help you generate a certain amount of results that can help complement everything else that you're doing. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal talks about the launch of his new Social Media Center of Excellence Facebook Group and what he has learned building a new community in social media - and how you can leverage Neal's experience.Key Highlights[02:14] My Own Facebook Group[02:41] What to Expect When You Join My Facebook Group[04:24] How  Started My Group[05:42] Deciding On Who You Opt-In Your Group[06:13] How to Get More Followers and Engagement?[06:45] "Cross-Pollination"[07:19] Your Group Should Serve Utilitarian Purpose[08:59] Utilitarian Part of a Facebook Group[11:10] The Advantage of Engagement on Facebook[11:58] The Other Side of the Equation: Engagement[13:02] The Challenge on Engagement[13:21] The First Thing I Do Whenever We Have a New Group Member[14:09] Create Rules![14:54] Have A CombinationNotable QuotesNow, obviously, numbers are not everything. It's more about quality versus quantity. I want the right people into the group.So who would you opt in? Right I'm totally against opting people and I think it goes against a lot of well basic principles of etiquette and of of online social networking, and social media principles.But also, once you opt them in once they go to the group, you need to have a clear visual clear rules, posting rules, a clear about section, and you need to tell them, hey, you know, if you're offended, please opt out, you have already expressed interest in that's why you're here.And how do you get more engagement, it's the same themes over and over and over. And there's no one golden rule, because every community is going to be filled with different people with a different objective. It's the whole social media is half science, half art. This is sort of the science, but you all need to be the artist, because we're dealing with people here, and everybody is different, right?But really, your group, or your community should serve utilitarian purpose. And I think a lot of brands businesses don't really have that utilitarian purpose, because they're looking at purely as a marketing objective.But you need to have a utilitarian view that it just becomes natural to push people there, right.So it really is a great place, like I said, engage where people are. And the beautiful thing about this engagement is that EdgeRank actually works in your favor, if groups are getting more of a drink than pages are you can imagine.The objective of a group is to get actual discussion from people, and not just comments on what you write her answers to your questions, but you want them to submit their own questions.And I want people to know that we're going to be very focused and I want them to value it. I want them to I want my group to attain mindshare for what it is versus competing groups wherever they may be in social media. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As your company's social media presence grows and you begin to yield "influence" in social media, you will be faced with those who copy your content as well as attack you. Neal shares his own experience as to how he deals with these issues to help prepare you and your business for what may lie ahead for you.Key Highlights[01:35] Who Are Considered As Influencers?[02:21] Content Creator Perspective[03:37] How to Find If Other People Is Copying Your Content?[03:57] Tools for Plagiarism[05:32] Taking It One Step Further[08:48] Why I Don't Upload My Content to SlideShare[11:32] How I Found Out My Ebooks Were Copied and Uploaded to SlideShare[12:41] Always Embed Internal Link Into Every Single Blog Post[13:39] Strategy on Creating Extremely Shareable Content[15:17] Why I Think Publicly Confronting Someone Is An Attack[16:50] You Got To Have Tough Skin[21:10] Dealin with Disagreears[22:17] It's Okay to Block PeopleNotable QuotesAnd this is really what businesses want to become more should want to become right, you want to create content that is going to engage with users, that's going to help your company be found.And that's, you know, the common theme for the consumer brand, or the business brand is at the end of the day, you want to be known out there, right? You want that share of voice out there on social media.But I think it's something that's more of us need to do. If we find out about it, I would not be shy, because then copying your content is a very, very brash move in this new digital world that we live in. And perhaps we need to educate more people.And if you're creating a lot of content for various purposes, sometimes you might create ebooks for the purpose of opting people into your newsletter of getting them to the top of the marketing funnel, you know, creating, creating a relationship with social media. But taking it down the funnel, one step by acquiring an email address is something that most companies do.And if you want to take that approach, you know, you just want to make sure that you're branding, your product names, your service names, or company names are included, you know, throughout not just the visual branding, if it's a PowerPoint, but in a blog post is mentioned throughout every single blog post, and then maybe you don't have to worry about it.So you get random people out there. And you sort of have to have tough skin, when you're out there, knowing that there's gonna be people who disagree with you.Now, is anybody listening to that person? Probably not. So the biggest damage that you actually get, when people like this confront your business, or you as a content creator, it's more about just an emotional or a mental damage. And this is what's going to happen, once you establish got leadership or you have a large social media following, you attract the good and the bad. But at the end of the day, we come down to having a block people block people who are attacking us sending negative thoughts our way, and what have you. And it's okay to block people. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Have you had a bad experience on a social network and refused to venture back into it? That's not good business sense. Perhaps it has happened to you by being opted-in to several Facebook Groups without your permission. Now is time to join Neal in rediscovering the potential business value of Facebook Groups.Key Highlights[02:47] Do A Reset On Everything You Do[03:30] Facebook Statistics[04:24] The Biggest Social Network[05:55] Adapt and Change Your Way[06:31] Facebook Groups[07:45] My Facebook Group Experimentation[08:35] Disadvantage of Facebook Group[11:58] My Facebook Community[14:03] The Challenge[14:53] Creating Group Rules[15:09} What To Do TO Increase Engagement[15:18] How to Join My Facebook GroupNotable QuotesYou need to be with your audiences. And you need to figure out a way to engage with your audience to make yourself more successful. But I have immense respect for the platform and the people behind the platform. They really are building something that, you know, is in essence, sort of revolutionising the way that we communicate with each other for lack of a better concept.So the other thing is that we talk about all these other networks where people still spend a heck of a lot of time on Facebook, it is still by far the biggest social network.But the fact that people are on Facebook is no different today, it's irrelevant to the edge rank, the edge rank, and social media is always going to favor people over businesses. Businesses are always at a disadvantage when engaging in social.So the other side of the Facebook group is as a business, you're at a disadvantage. When you're in a Facebook group, you're engaging as a person. And you can engage with people a lot more easier than you can on a Facebook page, if they have an interest in your group. But if people are going to pay to be in a forum, I want it to be presented in a certain way to make it a resource for everybody over time. t the benefit now, and I'm already seen it is that I'm creating when you're talking to someone on Twitter, you know, or on some of the social networks, some of the other ones, it's a little bit different than when you talk to them on Facebook, because it's the most personal of our networks, it's where we share the most personal information. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As Instagram continues to gain in popularity, many haven't started to leverage the opportunities that Instagram provides businesses. Neal introduces his own story of the why and how he is transitioning to use Instagram as a more integral part of his social media marketing - and why you should as well.Key Highlights[01:35] The Rise of Visual Social Media Marketing[02:19] Where Does Instagram Fall?[03:19] Brands That Do Well On Instagram[04:31] How To Use Instagram?[06:32] My Issues With People Who Are Just Posting Quotes All the Time[07:54] Authenticity in Instagram[09:22] Tools for Utilizing Instagram[11:38] Social Media Productivity[12:38] Taking the Step Above Beyond Brand Awareness[14:03] Retain Authenticity with InstagramNotable QuotesWith the ability to photo tag, I immediately thought of Instagram as really, if you're a brick and mortar that might be the second best place you want to be after Facebook.I'm all about trying to contribute original value to social media. So you know, there's a part of it, which is authenticity, that it is something about you and it is irrelevant to your brand. And curating third party content for any social network is one strategy.But one thing I was looking for is we have all these social media dashboards come out, why can't they handle Instagram?So once you have a tool like that, and you begin to consider Instagram more strategic, because there are so many eyeballs on it, you want to maintain a daily basis of engaging with others, not just commenting and liking on, you know, friends, your network, but also being able to post more often.ut I will say that, you know, for brand awareness, Instagram is extremely important right now. And with the tools, we have the opportunity to take it to the next level. And I would say to try to avoid that at all costs, if you could, I really do think that it's important to retain the authenticity with Instagram. And I think it's gonna allow you to have a deeper connection with other people. And at the end of the day, it's gonna help you be more effective with your social media marketing. I think most people and you know there's a lot of savvy social media marketers that may have already been doing this for the past several months. But I think that you know the notion of scheduling unless you're a brand that's been doing a lot on Instagram. I think it's still relatively new to a lot of marketers and a lot of small businesses and I hope that this gives you the knowledge the inspiration Have the courage to go out there and do it yourself and not miss out on the potential there. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal interviews Glenn Gaudet, CEO and founder of GaggleAMP, and talks about the history of employee advocacy and the challenges that face companies that try to launch such a program internally.Key Highlights[00:51] The Primary Use of GaggleAmp[01:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Glenn Gaudet[02:42] How Glenn Got the Idea of the GaggleAmpNotable Quotes[06:52] How the Market Evolved[07:47] What Lacks in Understand Social Media[08:19] Why You Need to Understand the Value of Social Media[10:38] The Trap into Employee Advocacy[12:54] Free Trial[13:34] The Power of Feedback[14:26] Why Companies Sometimes Get Disappointed in Employee Advocacy[19:59] How GaggleAmp Works[20:43] Connect with GlennNotable QuotesAnd then from that was really the idea of having a platform that was designed to do this in a way that it was super easy for the employee to share the content, yet maintain their privacy, and provide rich tracking information for the company and to balance all those different pieces.And what was lacking in that was the understanding of how social media fits into the broader marketing mix. And now what we're seeing is we're seeing social media professionals who truly are coming out of that understanding of the marketing mix, rather than somebody who's just often off on their own doing social media.If you don't understand the value of social media, why would you want to amplify it? Right? Because that's what our platform does. It amplifies what you're already doing. And if you're already doing nothing, you multiply that times zero, you still get nothing.But it really is really does allow companies to scale their amplification, yes, in an organic way, that is just very, very different than anything else out there.They think that all of their employees are going to be social media managers, they're going to have these complex dashboards, and they're going to be figuring out what they're going to say, and, and that's just not the case, the rank and file employee, just want you to make it really super easy for them to either share it or say no thanks.I think that the biggest one that pops up is a certain expectation. And this, this is why we do a free trial, we want you to actually use it. And as part of the free trial, we want you to invite various stakeholders that are employees. Because your expectations of what they want, are probably going to be different. And so with, by going through the trial, you not only get the results in terms of the amplification, but you're going to get the feedback from those other stakeholder types within your organization.And so when when when marketing expects certain things from other types of employees, they oftentimes get disappointed because they're expecting them to do all this additional work.It's really powerful to understand what these other roles in the organization to, and how really active do they want to be about doing more of the social media marketers job within the organization. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A first look at the newest social network Ello. Should you sign up? Spend much time there? Use it for your business? Listen to Neal's advice and gain some rational perspective on what value Ello might be able to provide you and your business.Key Highlights[01:15] New Social Network - ELLO[02:07] Remain Holistic on Your Approach on Social Media[02:45] What is ELLO?[03:56] Experiment on ELLO![04:17] How ELLO Works[06:15] Keep An Eye on ELLO[06:58] One of the Cool Things About ELLO[07:28] Another Thing You'll Notice on ELLONotable QuotesWhile yes, it is growing in certain circles, we have to take a and remain you know holistic about our approach to social media.And it really is going to depend to see what ello does in order to bring value to businesses who want to leverage it for marketing, even though ellos already said we are going to be an ad free network, which makes sense, I still think that they could offer, you know solutions for businesses.There's a lot of artists, a lot of creative types that are on the platform. And it's it's a beautiful network, it's just another avenue to engage with people. So I think as a matter of experimentation, just to get familiar with the network, I don't think it can hurt to actually acquire an invites, which you will need, every user can only invite five people to the network.It's no different than any other social network. But obviously, social media is about being where your audiences.But I will say that it's refreshing to be on a network where there's no ads, and where people aren't, you know, where you can have natural conversations and meet new people. It's sort of like the early days, like I said, of any other social network. So you might be able to meet interesting people there. And it's an experimentation, who knows what will happen.But until then, that is basically what ello is, and what it will become, nobody knows and no one can predict the future. And it really, you know, comes down to, you know, sticking to your guns, sticking to your social media strategy. But you know, keeping an eye on ELLO, and keeping an eye on sort of the leading people that are on our following a few and keeping an eye on the numbers as to how many followers they have.Experiment with it, try to post something different once a day try to connect with people at a human level= and look at the impressions you're getting.  Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How should small businesses approach an investment in social media? Learn how a social media consultant views how small business should consider what business value they should derive from social - and how to better manage their expectations vis a vis budget spend on social. Key Highlights[00:49] The Power of Habit[01:31] The Concept of Unplugged[05:01] The Challenge with Social Media[06:06] My Approach[06:16] A Role of Social Media Consultant  [09:15] Things I Have Struggled With As Social Media Consultant[09:57] The Fear I Have As Social Media ConsultantNotable QuotesAnd obviously, for those listening to the podcast, we know that that is not the world of social in order to be successful. It takes time to, obviously, create relationships develop relationships as a whole content side. And above and beyond that there's sort of a brand new inside that this doctor or this small business has their own culture, their own brand, their own differentiators in the marketplace.So my approach has always been company's needs strategy and education. Let's have an onboarding process so I can train your company. And let's keep an ongoing relationship as a social media adviser. That is basically the role that a social media consultant should play because we are consultative. I just think that there's an incredible amount of time that goes into crafting a voice crafting content, curating content, engaging, that's a few $100 a month, unless you price yourself very, very inexpensively just would not allow me to do the best job that I could.So this is something that I present to you in the spirit of being unplugged, and a really opening up my mind to you and the things that I have struggled with as a social media consultant.But then, at the end of the day They said, well, what's the ROI of doing this? And that's sort of the fear I have for a lot of people that do this sort of job as well, as companies that, you know, put money into an effort that really isn't appropriate for getting business value out of a social media presence.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you're looking to better leverage social media for marketing, this is the one question that you need to answer to help guide you towards implementing the right social media strategy.Key Highlights[01:18] The One Question You Should Be Asking Yourself About Your Business[03:43] My Laser-Focused Approach[04:30] Where Do You Get Your Leads?[04:47] Businesses Through Referrals[05:26} What Can You Do In Social Media to Help our Relationships[06:39] Where's Your Market?Notable QuotesAs I always say, social media, complements everything and replaces nothing. A lot of us tend not to because we start a process and strategy and we get going, and we sort of get lost in it over time.And this is obviously where social media can help you to scale and help you develop relationships nationwide, whether it be LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.And the answer that really comes down to well, what is the objective who are your customer? And I think a lot of people, a lot of businesses still aren't very clear about that when they think about social media. So you have a lot of consumer facing companies, but you also have b2b aspects of your company.So it's easy to focus on the consumer facing side. But it's often the business facing side, that is actually giving you your sales. And it's really trying to map out both and understanding that, you know, I was talking to a manufacturer of chocolate chip cookies last week.And as long as you understand that, and you can answer those questions and understand that it's going to take a very, very different approach, you know, potentially different networks, obviously, different tactics and different objectives for your b2b and b2c side and learn how to shuffle your budget your resources for each one, and to be able to calculate your ROI, I think you're gonna do really, really well.It probably makes sense to invest more of his effort on the b2b side, in terms of social media and using that to help foster and develop those relationships.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Building a brand in social does not happen overnight. Learn about just how important consistency in your social media efforts are and how to use paid social to help accelerate it. Key Highlights[01:10] Importance of Consistency in Social Media[03:33] Other Things You Should Be Consistent About[04:52] The More Recognition, The More Credibility[05:35] Accelerating Our Efforts in Social[06:40] Consistency Supplemented with Paid Social[06:47] The Wrong Way of Using Paid Social[07:47] The Best Way to Use Paid Social[08:27] Success Doesn't Happen Overnight[09:30] Do Not Buy Fake FollowersNotable QuotesFor normal businesses and brands that are not part of you know, the fortune 50 or consumer vocabulary, it takes time. And it not only takes time, but it's consistency. See public communities have hundreds of millions of users out there. And once you engage in a relationship with them.And if you just sit there and talk to yourself, other people may hear you. But when you actually tap on people's shoulders by following them and sending them a social signal, or maybe favoriting, a tweet that really resonated with your content, strategy, whatever it might be, it's the consistent sending of those things, and engaging, that builds up, others engaging with you over time, and it is what I would consider a tumbleweed effect.Because the bigger that you become others that are looking for sources for content creation, whether it be on Twitter, on Pinterest, or Google Plus, people tend to be attracted or businesses tend to be attracted to those that I refer to as maximize your social are the role models that you want to emulate. The more that you get recognized, the more credibility you have.But what I'm trying to say is that consistency, supplementing in the right way with paid social can really help you.0ut because you lose credibility, and you get clicks when you pay for clicks that don't resonate in the likes or follows.And people think more followers equals more social proof.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How can a B2B company find success in a social network like Pinterest? Find out how and learn some new tips, tricks, and concepts to help you Maximize Your Social in this episode.Key Highlights[01:11] What is Pinterest Myth?[01:27] Why Pinterest?[05:35] Pinterest Statistics[06:51] What I Like About The New Pinterest Analytics[08:34] Looking at Demographics[11:25] Top 6 Interests of Females in Pinterest[12:40] Other Pinterest Analytics Feature[15:43] Social Media Marketing WorldNotable QuotesSo you know, when we talk about social media, one of the things is yes, we want to engage with people, we want to engage with influencers, we want to engage with brand advocates, with potential customers in social media. But we also want to bring them back to our website.And it's really bringing all this together in your mind or on a dashboard, thinking holistically as to where am I going to invest my time and I do this on a weekly basis, right?Businesses, do business with other businesses, but it's really people inside those businesses doing business with people inside the other business, right.So if you think about it that way, Pinterest, regardless of the demographic or what people post a lot of is very you know, relevant to I think every business out there.So that was really an aha moment that there are enough people interested in social media for what I do to be able to generate interestIt sounds like a lot of work, it doesn't have to be you need to come down, you need to create a routine out of all this, and pick and choose the data that you're going to use, and pick and choose how you use it and make a process out of it.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal takes a deep dive into LinkedIn Pulse and reveals a "hidden" back door to help you get your content featured into LinkedIn Pulse.Key Highlights[01:33] One of the THings I Am Writing About in the Ebook[02:09] Why Would You Want to Syndicate Your Blog Posts Within LinkedIn[02:42] What is LinkedIn Pulse?[03:43] How LinkedIn Pulse Works[05:00] How to Get Your Content to Be Seen By More People[07:21] Have Connections[07:41] Why You Should Never Buy Fake Followers[08:57] Discover Tab[10:21] Channels Feature[10:41] Publishers Feature[11:45] My AHA MomentNotable QuotesLinkedIn is huge. One of the top 10 visited websites in the United States, sure, we'd all love to have guest blog posts on Forbes, but LinkedIn actually gets more traffic than Forbes, believe it or not. So it is a very, very lucrative and attractive demographic. And therefore if we are creating content for ourselves, our personal brands or for our businesses, it makes sense that we would want to publish on LinkedIn now what you publish on LinkedIn, obviously, you want it to be more appropriate for the demographic there.So you start to get a picture that not only is this a huge audience to serve both polls users on LinkedIn users, but also it's an audience, at least those 30 million people are actively consuming content. And this is where you start seeing why some people get published posts on LinkedIn that gets, you know, hundreds of 1000s of views literally. So that is something that obviously if you're sharing on LinkedIn, you want to reach out to people, you want to let them know about your posts. You want to write content, that when your connections who automatically become your followers see it, they want to engage with you. The more connections you have, in general, the more people it's going to be exposed to, although that's not necessarily the case. But it gives you a better chance of getting exposed to more people. But if you've bought fake LinkedIn connections, or you just you know, have fake people that are connected with you, that doesn't do any good either, because they're not going to engage with your content, very similar to why you shouldn't buy fake Facebook fans, and you shouldn't buy fake Twitter followers.But polls being such a huge asset, you want to get more and more LinkedIn company page followers if your business because the more followers you have, the higher you're gonna show up here in the recommended companies to follow.So hopefully the light bulb goes on, we need to be focusing more on a LinkedIn company page, we need to attract a bigger following.  Because all that is going to add to our company page being more and more recommendable in LinkedIn Pulse in our content from our company page being exposed more and more impulse, as more and more people subscribe to it.It's social media I find fascinating because all these social networks have their own little algorithms. And when you piece things together, it really is pretty incredible. And you sort of get a competitive advantage because I don't think a lot of people understand this right now. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

LinkedIn is not about the connections but the engagements and relationships you can build with other professionals and businesses. This episode will change your perspective on LinkedIn for the better.Key Highlights[01:48] Engaging on LinkedIn Differently[02:31] What to Do When LinkedIn Permanently Restricts You?[03:23] You Don't Need to Have As Many Connections As I Do[04:17] How LinkedIn Restrictions Happen[05:06] My Own Epiphany on LinkedIn[05:48] I Am Not Appearing in LinkedIn Search Results[07:08] What Happens When You Start A Conversation in A LinkedIn Group[07:31] LinkedIn Is the Best Place to Engage[08:44] Publishing Platform on LinkedInNotable QuotesNow the short answer to what I said, I said, LinkedIn is always changing the rules, right. And that's social media is always changing. Every single platform is always changing the way that they do business. But still, you know, everybody should have a robust network, multiplayer age by 10. That's the number of LinkedIn connections you should have. That's the number of new people you should be meeting on the annual basis that you can add to your LinkedIn network. And it really gives you more visibility other people, you become more visible to other people.My own epiphany when it when it comes to LinkedIn is, you know, what sort of value are you trying to derive out of the network. If you think of adding a connection as putting someone in your marketing funnel, then you obviously have it all wrong.You know, LinkedIn is where the professionals are, it's about making relationships, connections. And people do business with people that they know, like, and trust. So just the art of connecting have always said was just establishing a virtual connection in a database, right, a virtual data point, for lack of a better word.And what happens when you start a conversation in a LinkedIn group is that often leads to a connection. And when you connect with someone, where you've you looked at their background, you have a common affinity, a common interest, because you're in the same LinkedIn group, that connection is obviously going to be extremely valuable.But if you're looking to build up a network of like minded people, of peers that you can call upon in the future, or bounce ideas off of which I think LinkedIn is really all about, you need to be engaging.And if it's gonna take a little bit more time than just, you know, uploading a database, or, you know, clicking one to one on profiles, but I think it's gonna allow you to more authentically, and increase the quality of those connections that you make on LinkedIn, so that when you want to ask for an introduction, they'll actually do it for you, because you already have rapport with them.But I would rather have you authentically engage with those people that you want to be affiliated with. And you want to have them as part of your network, because you can establish that relationship with them. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal introduces the concept of an anchor network and how to leverage big data through tools that analyze your own social presence to better optimize your social.Key Highlights[01:12] Back to School Time![01:23] How to Use Big Data to Optimize Your Own Social Media[02:06] Two Things You Need[02:20] My Preferred Tools[03:07] What is Preferred Network[04:21] Example of What I Do on Twitter[06:32] What I Do in My NewsletterNotable QuotesAnd I think the back to school time is always a great time to look at our options, and really delve into some great books. And, you know, get to the next level wherever we are in our social media. And one of the keys here is you need to have a tool that allows you to analyze and allows you to compile all of that big data. And I say big data, we're not talking about, you know, terabytes of data here, pulled from the cloud, or, you know, Google servers, we're talking about data that we're accessing, from social media, on how people are engaging with our social media accounts. But once you have your preferred tool, now you need a preferred network. And what I mean by a preferred network is, if you have one network that you can use as your experimental testbed to try to get ideas as to what sort of content engages your audience, it's going to help you optimize your content across other platforms. Now, if you have unlimited resources, you obviously want to be optimizing your content according to each platform. Because each community is different. And they will all have different needs, right? And the more frequent you post, the more the bigger the data set you have to work with, the more you can really see which are the posts that come to the top when it comes to content that gets clicked or liked or commented on.So what I'm trying to do is really put my best foot forward and say, This is the content that my fans, my followers have said, is the most engaging.I think the content and analyzing the content that works, especially if you're curating a lot of content, each piece of content that you curate is not only helping you establish your thought leadership, but it's also testing the waters for content that's people will engage with and will maybe that's content that you should also start creating. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

When looking at optimizing your social media program, are you asking the right questions? Neal will provide examples of a holistic mindset to help you ask the right questions that will truly help you Maximize Your Social.Key Highlights[02:11] How to Tell If Your Facebook Efforts Are Paying Off?[02:39] Experiments[03:33] How Do We Expand Our Reach for Our Page?[04:49] Is Facebook Really Tied to Your Business?[06:15] What Differentiates Me from A Lot of People[06:55] Looking At Social Media As A Whole[08:31] Are You Asking the Right Social Media Questions?Notable QuotesAnd as you know, well, if you listen to my podcast from last week, and read my recent blog post on six social media productivity tips and 23 tools to help you, you'll know that I like to reserve time for content creation and engagement. And I urge my listeners this podcast and brands to do the same. And it was a great reminder. And it sort of echoes well, he gives you a specific, you know, tactics that you can do to see what works.So my response was basically, well, there's, you know, there's a few things you can obviously do, you can promote posts with paid social, which is obviously going to expand your reach, if that's what you want to do, you can post more frequently, which will tend to improve your reach, you can optimize your content, you can obviously try to post different types of content, and you can do an experiment or campaign.And it really comes down if you've read the chapter maximize your social on social media ROI and social media metrics.It equates to how effective your social media is, and how you might be wanting to do better at it. But it doesn't equate to this primary objective, it doesn't feed directly into the reason why you have a social media program. So if we were to look at social media as a whole, it's not just Facebook, right. And it's not just reach and Facebook, either. It's a lot of different things. You need to think holistically. Different news feeds work differently, different types of fans, on different networks engage differently with different content.There's loads of communities where your brand can get new engagement, new brand awareness, what have you. So really my question for you. Okay, is are you asking the right social media questions? But if you're just asking the wrong question, you're digging yourself a hole. And I don't think you're ever going to be effective with your program because you're chasing after the wrong thing.So let's stop asking, let's start doing and think about the questions that you have. Are they the right questions? Think of the entirety, think of business objectives, lots of different networks out there lots of different things you can do.And if you're looking for ideas, by all means, read, maximize your social again, from front to back. And that will help sync your brain with what I'm trying to teach through these podcasts. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal reveals his "aha!" moment from his recent blog post on LinkedIn and offers advice on better understanding the unique demographic that is viewing your blog posts on LinkedIn.Key Highlights[00:40] Understanding the Audience for Your LinkedIn Blog Posts[00:56] My LinkedIn Resources[01:54] How I Consider LinkedIn[02:11] My AHA Moment[02:53] My Free Ebook[03:47] What I Did to Introduce My New Ebook on LinkedIn[05:48] The Power of Comments on LinkedIn[07:35] LinkedIn Is A Unique CommunityNotable QuotesThere's a lot of people who say, Well, I have a blog, I don't want to create special content for LinkedIn, that's just a waste of time, I'll just, you know, republish my own content on LinkedIn. And you know, there's a lot of people that are doing that, in all honesty, and some of them have been really successful, I have not taken that approach. I love the approach. And if you're going to make content, make it work. And if you're going to publish the same content, at least, you need to rephrase it for the LinkedIn community. I'm not saying that I copy and pasted a particular blog post and publish it on LinkedIn for the first time.But it's really interesting to see the quality and the power of the comments I got, because they weren't coming from just blog readers who happen to find me on Pinterest or stumble upon these were coming from decision makers, former CEOs and CMOS on LinkedIn.So to me, I'm just giving a preview of what's coming in mainstream corporate America, but on LinkedIn to others that are not part of the social media world that I'm in. It was quote, unquote, a thought provoking piece. And it's sort of repeated what I thought are reiterated what I thought that is, if you're just gonna cut and paste what you blog, on your blog, or LinkedIn, it's not gonna be nearly as effective if you have the topic and the tone and the perspective that these decision makers are looking for on LinkedIn.B ut once you guest blog somewhere else, whether it be on LinkedIn publishing platform or on someone else's platform, you need to retool your content, your perspective, even your call to action for that unique community. But regardless, it just goes to show you that you blog for your community, if it's on your own blog, you none, you understand your community, your target user.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Spending too much time in social and achieving too few business results? Let me share with you my favorite social media productivity tips - and a plethora of tools to help you and your business improve your social media productivity by leaps and bounds.Key Highlights[01:35] Social Media Has Never Been Free[02:11] 6 Social Media Productivity Tips[03:20] The Beauty of Content Curation[03:46] Content Curation Tools[04:41] 3 Different Communities of Content Creator that Help Promote Content[06:03] Schedule Your Posts[08:11] Use A Dedicated Browser[08:45] Stick to A Daily Routine[09:33] Get Analytical[10:25] Turn Old Into NewNotable QuotesSo the whole advent of paid social, why do we have to pay to get noticed in the Facebook newsfeed and to be honest with you, social has never been free, it's required time, it's required someone's time, right?At the end of the day, it's the human resource cost that is there. And therefore, if somehow we can be more productive with our use of that time, visa vie social media, that's money in the bank, from my perspective. If you're going to curate content, why not curate content from people that are actually creating the content, I think you're going to be able to create more direct and engaging relationships than just curating content from the mass media.Find your vehicle that helps you discover relevant content quickly.The important thing is to find the tools that work for you that are helping you find the most relevant content and make it easy for you to control when and where your content is posted in the most efficient way. I think if you can create these daily weekly routines, you're going to be all the better and if you can create those social media boundaries, as I like to call them, and you stick to those daily weekly routines, you're going to get a really really good idea as to how much time you're spending doing what where's the ROI and therefore better at relegating things to a daily or weekly task and therefore becoming more not only productive but effective with your social media.You can reuse your content for a variety of content marketing, mediums, infographics, ebooks, revising them to create new blog posts, podcasts, you don't always have to reinvent the wheel when you're creating content.While there are certain things I do to increase my productivity, the engagement always has to be organic, it always has to be natural.This leaves you time for the actual engaging with other social media users, or actually creating unique content, which I think are two of the most important things that you obviously cannot automate.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A look at why unplugging from social media is a critical component to a social media strategy as well important to understanding the ROI of social from a business and personal perspective. Key Highlights[00:43] The Personal Side of Social Media[03:50] Why Social Media is an Ever-Changing Landscape[06:21] Social Media Should Not Be a Burden[08:31] Make Every Post Count[09:04] You Don't Need to Be On All Platforms.Notable QuotesBut the important thing is, and as I come back from Japan, I see the increased use of these social networks that were designed primarily for people to communicate, often talk about social media being the convergence of information and communication, right.The important thing is, the more people spend in these messaging apps, and they bring social media back into the personal realm, the less they're spending on social media platforms.This is why social media is an ever changing landscape. And you really need to be monitoring things and adopting your social media strategy on a regular basis.And I really feel good about doing it, it was almost this burden that I felt that I had to do something. And that's what social media should not be about whether it's for people for businesses, right.This is something that people should not be doing. It's something that businesses should not be doing, especially when you don't see the ROI. And when you do see the ROI, you're obviously going to put in a more concerted personal well, as human as a brand can get effort into reaping the benefits of engagement on that platform, right.It's important for businesses also to realize, you know, this may be the day where we need to unplug or extremely lessens our presence in the platform because the ROI is not there. But we see the ROI on another platform.Really think about, you know why you're on social media, and businesses should be thinking the same thing. But if you're not seeing the ROI from network, unplug from it. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal announces his new free ebook, created together with the employee advocacy platform PeopleLinx, on how to create, manage, and measure an employee advocacy program regardless of the size of your business.Key Highlights[00:49] My Newest Ebook Resource[02:03] Where Marketing Begins[02:43] Employee Statistics[03:42] Interesting Note About Overlap[04:35] Where the Ebook Starts[05:40] Defining Your Employee Advocacy Strategy[06:35] Measuring Employee Advocacy Strategy Success[07:43] How to Gain Access to the EbookNotable QuotesThe idea is that companies often look outside the company walls for influencers, or fans, or people that they can try to influence to talk about them in social media, while some of their biggest fans are working for them inside their company. So the idea of employee advocacy is how do we yield? And, you know, it's really no surprise, you know, most strategies in social focus on the brand entity, and overlook the power and the influence of the employee use of social networks.You can imagine that as a huge word-of-mouth marketing opportunity. And the more employees you have, and the larger their social graph, the bigger the opportunity it is for your company.But the interesting note about overlap is that there have been different studies that have found that overlap between employees, networks and networks that follow brands have very, very little overlap.I think the book is going to be interesting to you, as far as you understanding how you should be requesting your own internal departments to create content for you to share, to help you yield your own thought leadership and to keep in touch with people in your industry.There's also a very, very important section on sourcing content for employees to share. And this is where I think a lot of companies break down because marketers want to get those calls to action out there. But employees are like, you want me to post this blatantly self promotional tweet, on my profile?  And this is where there is a lot of, you know, misunderstandings that happen, or a lot of failures, or only a very, very small percentage of the people that have signed on to be part of the program, actually go out and post a tweet, or a LinkedIn update, or what have you regarding it.he employee advocacy without a doubt is one of those trends. And I think that if you are a social media marketer, this is an ebook, regardless of your experience with employee advocacy, I think that this ebook holds value for you. And it's absolutely free. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal shares the four things companies need to launch a successful social media program based on time he recently spent in rural Japan helping farmers get social media savvy. Key Highlights[01:00] What I did in Japan[03:33] The Challenge[04:21] What is the First Step?[04:57] Education Comes in 2 Different Ways[05:23] Second Part: Strategy[06:10] One of the Big Missing Pieces[06:50] You Need Content[07:44] Compelling Stories[10:00] Creating SystemNotable QuotesAnd therefore the first step really is how do we get these farmers on Facebook and derive value out of being on Facebook and seeing that this can be a viable future for them by engaging on Facebook and using it as a digital media platform.The first step really is the education right? And the education comes in two different ways. Alright, so number one, understanding that potential. And number two, really yourself becoming a user of the platform and understanding how people use it, right? There's so many things that go into a social media strategy. But these are things that you need to think through. And if you've never done that, and you just go into the do before you do the plan.People use social platforms differently than maybe they did two or three years ago, they've moved to other platforms, maybe, and maybe you've missed them.And I think one of the big missing pieces comes into this notion that social media and I always talk about it being the convergence of information and communication.The content comes in a variety of formats of mediums. You have photos, you have videos, you have, you know, blog posts, you have status updates, but you need to have a content and what these farmers needed, was they needed to have stories.It's the development of the stories and they themselves do not understand it.Social media is always changing. What you do with social media as a business needs to Always Be Changing. Always be in flux as well. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Join Neal in a candid conversation over a pint from London as he introduces three of his social media friends who help provide fresh (but sometimes "old school") insight into leveraging social media for your business. Key Highlights[01:00] What I did in Japan[02:40] Introducing Alex[03:15] How Alex Started With Social Media[04:10] How Social Media Affected Alex's Personal and Professional Life[05:05] Introducing Liz[05:43] How Liz Started With Social Media[11:58] Introducing Conrad[14:42] Conrad's Tips on Improving Writing[15:40] Get Your Branding Right[17:16] Connect with Conrad[17:43] Social Media Is Real[18:55] Social Media Is About PeopleNotable QuotesAnd I think it's important that as businesses, that we use social media and we forget that we're engaging with actual people.And when we make a person, a person, a human human connection, the most amazing things the most amazing ales that you would never imagine drinking if you thought they were laggers. The stories the education that connections you make are amazing. If you have a message, just believe that if you put yourself out there, especially using social media is such a powerful medium, just do it, don't be afraid, and connect offensively with people, because people will really give back to you in a way that you cannot even imagine.I think first of all, one of the most important thing is is branding and you know, copy is part of branding and getting the right tone of voice is very, very important.And if you want to position yourself, as you know, unique someone, a unique business in the industry, the tone of voice is part of that. And, and part of branding is consistency. And when you treat people individually, and you gauge with them individually, you build a deeper relationship and that deeper relationship, assuming that they are a fan of your company, can have obviously significant positive impact over time.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Pinterest Community Boards have a unique role in the world of social media. Find out why you should be leveraging them as part of your social media strategy.Key Highlights[01:26]  Great Way of Sharing Passion[02:05] community Board in Pinterest[02:20] How Pinterest Works[04:24] My AHA Moment[04:47] Pinning Together[05:35] The Advantage of Opening My Boards to Others[06:27] How to Audit Your Boards[07:57] The Interesting Thing About Community BoardsNotable QuotesWhat a great way to bring the world together, just like social media is. Think about it social is about people and engaging with people and the social signals that you send to people. And when you share someone else's content, it is an amazing thing you are putting your brand on the line to share with someone else.These are things were creating a community board, if you're a brand that already has an established user base that's engaging with you on Pinterest is really at this point, I think a no brainer.So instead of me carrying the burden of you know, whenever I see things, I will organically pin them. Why not enlist their help as well. And when I enlist their help, that means I allow them to pin to the board I invite them to pin The board.And the benefits of me are it allows them to scale in that when they pin it to their followers, it's going to be seen, but my board is going to be seen by their followers, right. So that's really the interesting thing of the community boards. It really allows you to scale. It also allows you to support others I created maximize social business as a platform to support our bloggers that everyone benefits from. And really the Pinterest community board is the next best thing to it. But if you just go back and listen to the last five minutes of me describing Pinterest community boards, you begin to feel that they are something that is very, very special in the world of social media, a special way of extending your reach for your content, a special way of creating and extending relationships within Pinterest.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

LinkedIn recently upped the ante of becoming a paid member with the new "Spotlight" account. Is it worth the upgrade? Listen on for Neal's detailed advice on the new features and why you may (or may not) be interested in them. Key Highlights[01:03] The Recent Changes LinkedIn Did[01:47] Should You Pay for LinkedIn Professional Plan[03:26] What is an Open Link?[04:06] Spotlight[04:32] Open Profile[04:55] What Open Profile Gives You[05:36] Making Your Profile Appear Larger in Search Results[06:55] How to Find LinkedIn Spotlight PlanNotable QuotesAnd that just is allowing me to be a little bit more contactable, it raises my contact ability, as I would say, on LinkedIn, which is important because when people are looking for someone for a particular reason, they don't want to have to deal with introductions, they don't want to have to deal with sending constantly in mails, they want to be able to communicate with you directly as easy as possible. That's why the contact ability part of your LinkedIn profile is so important.And like I said, if you invest in LinkedIn a great deal, you're on it every day, you've developed business from it, it really is a no brainer to pay that a little bit more and get these new premium features.This is a real podcast, a real person trying to do what I can on my mission to empower you with education and really sharing best practices and questions that I get from my clients and my speaking engagements and trying to really find truth and help you all become more efficient at maximizing your social.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you're not finding success as a member of any given social network, chances are you simply aren't spending enough time there and becoming a true community member. From Twitter to Pinterest to SlideShare, Neal shares the secrets behind social media success. Key Highlights[01:01] The Approach I Am Taking[02:18] Why I've Been Getting A Lot of Traffic in Twitter[04:07] What Devoting Time to Community Means[06:38] The Beauty of Infographics[06:51] My Pinterest Experiment[08:33] Embed Yourself Deeply in the Community PlatformNotable QuotesOf the time I've spent in social media, I'm beginning to realize, as I experienced this across a number of social networks, that those who are most devoted to the community in which they're a member of will become the most successful and social.It's impossible unless you have a staff to be equally active or deeply active on all social networks, you have to pick your poison, as they say.If you think about it, you know the same business people that are on Twitter, on LinkedIn, there's a lot of them that are on Pinterest. And once you understand the way that Pinterest works, and how viral it can be and how many repins there are, you begin to see how it's very easy for things that you post to appear very, very prominently on the news feeds of a lot of people and the news feeds on Pinterest only show a few on mobile, it only shows two at a time on top, on the desktop editions, four or five or so. What's amazing with the infographic and this is a slightly divergent topic. But once you have an infographic, it can be shared everywhere. And it's about getting brand recognition by putting your name on the bottom.The beauty about infographics is not only do people love to read them and share them, but you get access to one of the most influential crowds in social media, which are content creators.It's all about really deeply embedded in for lack of a better word yourself in the community of that network and truly engaging and sharing liberally, with others and using or I should say, creating a community platform that you can leverage to help others that you respect with as well.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A look into the different ways social media users use Instagram as well as other social networks - and my recommendations for being the most effective on each singular social network with your social media marketing. Key Highlights[00:36] How Striving to Use Social Networks for Their Original Intention Can Help You Be More Effective at Social Media Marketing[01:20] How I Use Social Networks Differently[01:28] Why Instagram Is One of My Favorite Networks[02:20] Social Networks Are Always Changing[06:35] Social Media Are for Human[06:59] Use Networks for What They Were Originally Intended[08:48] My Advice for TodayNotable QuotesBut, you know, the social networks are always changing, because in essence, we as users are hijacking them and using them for things they were never intended for.Instagram was a place where take a picture on your phone, right, and you upload it. And it allows people to see the real you even businesses are using Instagram in many, many different ways. Pinterest does give you the ability to upload an image from your computer to share and, and I think it creates a great visual memory on my Japan board.At the end of the day, it's humans that are using social media, it's humans, within businesses that are trying to reach out to other humans, whether they be decision makers in business for b2b, or whether they be consumers.But I just think you're going to be more successful at your social media marketing, by using these networks for what they were originally intended. I just think that, you know, Instagram or some of these other places, it's really important to understand who is using them, why they're using them what they were intended for.I got pretty overwhelming support by a lot of different people that some of them are true social media influencers in themselves, I feel a little bit more confident that there's a lot more people that think this way. And therefore you may want to rethink what you are posting on some of these, especially visual social networks.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal interviews crowdfund marketing expert Peter Trapasso at Cisco Live and gets to the gist of how to use crowdfunding as a marketing vehicle. Key Highlights[01:18] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Peter Trapasso[01:25] Peter's Role in the World of Social Media[02:25] What is Kickstarter?[04:07] Advantages of Utilizing Crowdfund Marketing[6:00] Best Practices[06:49] Crowdfund to Social Media Marketing vs Email Marketing[08:48] User Bases[10:36] Final Thoughts[11:41] Connect with PeterNotable QuotesSo before launching, you're in a thing called pre launch and you need to do your planning. You need to put together your tribe and that would be friends, family, people that would be very interested in what you're trying to raise money for. So you need to do that first and the same time you need to start building your social circle.If you think about it more as a startup and a product, lead with the big idea, what are you trying to do, what are you trying to sell, then if it connects with people, then you know, the funding will come.And on top of that, you also want to leverage not just your core supporters, your tribe, as I called it, but also you want to have them become people that can spread the word to those that they know that might be interested in helping as well.Part of its the novelty, but also it's an effective use of social media as far as getting the word out, and also leveraging email marketing. So these things that already exist, you're just repurposing them for a new campaign.Sure, definitely do your homework. And I can't stress that enough. The ones that do best are the ones that have certain elements.Lok at other ones that have won ones that have made their funding and reach out and talk to them both within the area that your product and service falls into. And also ones that just seem to, you know, done really well, people tend to be very friendly. And I think they'd be more than happy to help you out.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal continues providing his advice that he recently gave LinkedIn on career change and learning to adapt to – and thrive on – the constant change that is part of our everyday life.Key Highlights[01:09] Losing the Big Customer[02:44] Focusing On New Pipeline[03:13] Importance of Personal Relationships in Sales[04:17] Unplugging From A Career[05:59] Adjusting to the Curveball[06:57] Finding My Passion[07:37] Establishing My Brand[08:34] Launching My Career in a New Direction[09:27] Becoming An Author[10:11] Launching Windmills Marketing LLC[11:32] What I Learned From My ExperienceNotable QuotesSo being in sales, and if you're in sales, you you get it means that you learn to face constant rejection. But in the belief that every lost deal, or telephone call that wasn't returned, would bring me one step closer to closing, real business.I realized the absolute importance of personal relationships and sales, relationships, supersede contracts in China, at least at that time, when I was doing business there, as well as maintaining a very, very long term approach in relationship building, this time would be no different. I've talked about the biggest changes that have happened in my career, triggered by a number of different events that have occurred. Sometimes, though, we have career curveballs thrown at us internally.Putting family in front of career was something I had never done before in all honesty, but it was a natural reminder about what is the most important thing in life, and what we work for, to support our families, right. I learned to adjust to this situation, like other curveballs before this one, it wasn't easy. After achieving all that I achieved, I was ready to go to that next level. But I knew that there was something more important than once again, that long term perspective, that there are all these external and internal things that are going to be throwing curveballs out to you and affecting your career. But at the end, building up your experience, focusing your energy, and taking that long term perspective on career on life, was only going to work in my favor.  And it's really the constant change and adapting to the change with a combination of maintaining a long term view of my career, while creating short term deadlines, that has allowed me to understand the timing of the right pitch, and being prepared to run those bases.Change in your career is inevitable, generate your own change and learn to accept change brought upon you embrace the challenges and the new knowledge that can be obtained from them for your future. Sometimes this change will make you rethink your own career plans for the better, it becomes part of an education that better prepares you for any future challenge you might face.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal provides his advice that he recently gave LinkedIn on career change and learning to adapt to - and thrive on - the constant change that is part of our everyday life.Key Highlights[00:57] Career Curveball Series[04:06] How Life Prepare Us to Run the Bases[06:29] Planning on Starting My Career in China[08:35] Nothing Is Static[09:17] Starting My Career with Sales and Marketing[11:35] Becoming the China Sales Pioneer[16:32] Facing A New RealityNotable QuotesIt gave me a chance to really look back into my past into my entire career, and analyze not the one curveball but the many curveballs and how it has affected the way that I look at social media in the way that I hope you look at social media as well. The only constant in your career is change, learn to embrace it. I love to talk about social media as being an experiment. You always need to be doing different things and changing things. Because it's always changing. I think a career is the exact same, but I learned to embrace it.Life will always throw you curves, just keep fouling them off, the right pitch will come. But when it does, be prepared to run the bases. The more of that experience and all the varied experiences that we have, the better it prepares us to run the bases. As my father said, business is really about learning how to communicate with people and learning how to communicate your own ideas to other people from various cultural and historical backgrounds.When I talk with other people in social media, I tell them or you know, small business owners, entrepreneurs, self employed professionals, like myself, make internal deadlines almost on a quarterly basis and try to stick to them. Now, hopefully, you'll agree with me that sometimes we go through life so quick, that we forget to take a break, and smell the roses.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A blog post recently published on TechCrunch claims that Google Plus is dying. Neal Schaffer analyzes the facts behind the article, the evolution of social media, and yields some insight on the least understood social network today: Google Plus. Key Highlights[01:30] The Concept of Google Plus[03:16] What Will Happen If You Miss Out on Plus[04:32] What Makes Google Plus Different Than Other Social Network[05:26] The Other Important Thing About Google Plus[06:00] Thing that People Misunderstood About Google Plus[06:15] How to Begin Social Layer[07:19] What I Think is Happening in Google Plus[08:06] Why Have Doubt in Google Plus?[08:58] The Only Way of Determining ROINotable Quotes And in all honesty, I believe that this is questionable this post as to, is it good journalism or not, because if you're going to have a scoop, and you're going to provide analysis, and you're telling people, we have multiple sources that this is happening, you got to know a lot about the product, you got to know a lot about the industry. And you, you really have to understand that unless you can tell us some convincing data.I always include his quote when I talk about Google Plus to explain just how misunderstood Google Plus is, because Google Plus is both a community and what Google calls a social layer.But the other important thing about Google pluses, it is this concept, this notion of a social layer. It's tying together all of Google's products, and it's verifying your digital presence.And the problem that people so much misunderstand about Google Plus is, it was never really this standalone product that was going to compete with Facebook, or compete with Twitter or compete with LinkedIn, it was a social layer.  It's almost like the evolution of social business itself, it sort of mirrors that, where sometimes you start out with a social media person, then you have a social media department.But at the end of the day, companies are returning back and say we don't need a dedicated social media department, because we do social media, in every department in this company.And you'll have to read the article read the newsletter to find out what they're doing because of that, but social media is always in flux, right? It's always going to be in flux.So once again, we need to stick with social media in the here and now even some fairly well respected names out there in the media world.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you providing true value and building a relationship with your email subscribers? If not, it's time to do a hard reset with this advice from Neal Schaffer. Key Highlights[02:27] My Advice on Email[03:17] Why Email Marketing Is Still Critical[03:29] Why You Need to be on Multiple Social Media Platforms[03:57] Build Your List[05:01] The Other Thing You Should Be Doing[06:35] Getting to the Core of Your Email Marketing[06:57] Never Buy List from Third Party[08:50] Go Big or Go Home Approach[10:08] What Is Something Unique to Maximize Your Social Business?Notable QuotesAs you know, social media permeates everything, it it becomes part of what companies naturally do, it becomes part of their infrastructure. Social is being used, regardless of industry, regardless of department.And my advice really is I really, after you listen to this podcast, I want you to do a hard reset, and alt control, delete on what you've been doing an email and I want to share with you what I've been doing an email.What I learned that and I talked about this in the podcast was that email is like any other form of relationship building.First of all, well, let's first understand that email marketing is still critical that even with social media, people are not on social media all the time.You know, I think a lot of content marketing efforts, people forget about those downloadable resources that can help lead people into your marketing funnel, and they concentrate on blog posts and social media posts.If you don't have a process for it, you have nothing. And I want my newsletter to become one of those newsletters, something truly incredible that people will be waiting for.If you're looking to bootstrap this, to help you really create a compelling email newsletter. So don't just send out email newsletters because you have a list. And don't send them out weekly, because you feel you have to, I want you to do a reset. And I want you to really think about what value is that newsletter providing to your subscribers, not to you as a business, but to your subscribers. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal provides advice to hotels - which is equally applicable to any brick-and-mortar establishment - on creating photographable memories to help your customers promote your presence in social media. Key Highlights[02:30] What Else You Could Do to Increase Engagement?[03:44] Why Reviews for Hotels Are Still Critical?[04:26] Why Visual Aspect is Successful for Hotels[05:13] The Missed Opportunity[06:32] Leveraging Images Shared on Social Medi[06:44] Create A Photographic Memory [08:02] Recognize People Sharing Their Experiences in Your HotelNotable QuotesYou know, I think hotels, obviously, from a marketing perspective, have a few things that they can do if they are affiliated with a certain brand. Obviously, they have a branded websites, where it is a search engine where they can be found if someone is looking for a hotel of that brand and a certain city. So that sort of passive traffic.This leads to my point, which is for hotels, I believe to be successful and social. It comes down to often that visual aspect. I'm talking about what is it that when someone stays at your hotel now I talked about all these other avenues these other engines that are out there that will lead people to potentially staying at your hotel To ensure if you tweet, you're on Facebook, what have you, these are other avenues that may help people discover your hotel, especially if you use paid social, which I would recommend, obviously, for one of those reasons.But going beyond that, the missed opportunity that I find with hotels and social media is what you do after you have the customer, once someone has committed has booked a room at your hotel has checked in at your hotel.And after they check out of your hotel, have you knowingly maintained a relationship or created a relationship which social is really the perfect avenue for you to do that with, but to create an experience that would make them want to share with the world?It's about creating areas within your hotel where people can create a photographic memory.Creating an area just like you would want to create shareable content if you were blogging or creating content. But above and beyond that actually engaging, curating, responding to those that are already promoting your company out there and social media.  Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I had the pleasure of interviewing social media marketing professor Niklas Myhr, who teaches at Chapman University here in Orange County, California, about his social media classes and advice for both professional MBA students as well as undergrads. Key Highlights[00:48] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Niklas Myhr[01:08] Who is Dr. Niklas Myhr?[03:22] Teaching Undergrads[06:12] Undergrads's Level of Aptitude[06:27] 3 Components for Every Social Media Professional[10:09] Connect with NiklasNotable QuotesI tell my students that if you find yourself in a situation where you basically can kill a brand overnight, and the company doesn't even know how much control of the cockpit they have given. Please try to get an executive sit them down for coffee, and ask them stupid questions about who are you? What are you doing? What's your voice, because they have built a brand perhaps for 50 years. And you can kill it overnight. It is a balance. I tell students don't consider it dangerous for you career wise to join a company that doesn't allow you to have a personal social media presence in parallel to your full time employment.I think that then they need to get out of this mindset that you should do one thing really well, instead of doing a mediocre job everywhere, I say that it's some truth to that statement.Even if you have a minimal presence, you need to be technically proficient, to develop a skill and a voice of your own on behalf of the brand.Storytelling is sort of the key element. And I think that successful MBAs that did this without technology before I tell them, if you're if you're good at building relationships, and trust, and networks, that's great. Those skills are still applicable in social media age, you just can do more of it faster.And I think that successful MBAs that did this without technology before I tell them, if you're if you're good at building relationships, and trust, and networks, that's great. Those skills are still applicable in social media age, you just can do more of it faster.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Is your business changing? Offering new products or services or maybe concentrating strategically on one or two products instead of ten? Your content strategy needs to change as well. Learn what you need to do - and what to expect as a result - from this podcast.Key Highlights[01:03] Shifting Content Midshift[01:41] Shifting Content Midshift is Natural[02:58] How to Do It?[03:35] Another Way of Organizing the Buckets[04:21] Facts You Will Deal with When Shifting Content[05:28] Your Readers May Not Be Ready[07:09] Transitional Period[07:55] Focus on Relevant Metrics[08:23] Almost Do A ResetNotable Quotes But either way, shifting content midstream is natural businesses, organizations are dynamic, the products that you carry may change your industry might change, except if you're obviously very, very well established in a very, very stable industry.But things change, right. And what's going to happen is if you create your social media strategy, as outlined and maximize your social, and you do your PDCA, and you do your checking on a regular basis, you're going to notice that there's some type of content, invariably, that's going to do better than other types of content. And therefore, in some ways, you might be shifting a little bit more narrow, because you want to emphasize that content that is really engaging.It's not hard to do, it really comes down to those content buckets, and the weight of each of those content buckets, and the analyzing them and make sure that that weight and the names of the buckets are aligned with your strategy.And really emphasize the two or three buckets that you plan to blog most about, you could do something similar to what I did on maximize social business, which is organize all the buckets that I have into four major buckets, four or five major buckets, right platforms, which go over all the different social networks, disciplines, which go over all the internal departments of a company, industries, write themes, and then marketing is one.But I don't think that you need to do anything different than what you've done. It's just blogging on certain topics more frequently than other ones. But you're going to have two issues that come up.So be prepared to take a hit. But really, you want to focus on that content that's going to help you achieve your business objectives. And in doing so, you're going to have to generate a new readership. So expect that engagement to go down and inspect other things to go down as you do that there's going to be a transition period.I recommend that you do something similar and let people know, you know, going forward, this is this is the plan, this is what we're going to talk about, we look forward to engaging with you and providing you even more resourceful content. So I think that it's not something that you have to worry about, I think it's something you have to do, because your social media strategy, and what you blog about is all driven by those business objectives. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

How to properly build a sales funnel that flows from social media to your website. Where does the funnel building process start?Key Highlights[01:53] How to Properly Build A Sales Funnel that Flows from Social to the Website? [02:00] Where Does Funnel Building Start?[03:49] Attract People to Your Social Media Profile[04:53] Create A Landing Page Specific to the Social media Platform You Expect Traffic to Come From[05:58] Create Customized Page[06:14] Ways of Attracting People from Social Media to Your Website[07:09] Seamlessly Integrate Your Blog to Your Website[08:45] Social Selling: Employee Advocacy[09:06] One of the Case Studies Linkedin for SalesNotable QuotesI think if you can determine what those objectives are, you know, what you need to do, the next thing you need to do is obviously, dig a little bit deeper into social and try to figure out where your audiences how they use each platform, and what platform does it make sense to use what tactic in order to help you achieve your objective? If there's a sales funnel that flows from social to the website, well, you first of all need to attract people to your social media profile. And it needs to be very, very clear from your profile, how they can get to a relevant landing page.But at the end of the day, I think what a lot of companies miss out on and I talk about this when I talk about Twitter especially, and what I read When you do as well is to create a landing page that is specific to the social media platform that you expect traffic to come from a separate landing page.The more backlinks you get to that one page, the higher you know, the more authority, the more domain authority that page is going to have.On the other hand, it might be more effective from a conversion perspective, if you are able to describe your company in 140 character tweets, or to be able to show a widget of people that have recommended your company on Twitter by you know, showing a widget of all the favorites or a Storify. You want to seamlessly integrate it right to keep that funnel tight. And to improve the efficiency of that funnel to try to maximize the percentage and number of conversions you can get. And that it's the call to action.You need to understand where your sales are coming from what your website funnel looks like right now. And then do you have enough avenues for people to come from social media to your website? Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you having a problem aligning business goals with your social media activities? Whether you are a large or small business, solopreneur, non-profit, NGO, or religious organization, here are some ideas to help you begin Maximizing Your Social.Key Highlights[01:24] Catch Me at Social Media Marketing World[03:11] Building Social Strategies Aligned with Business Objectives[04:07] A Case Study I Did[05:48] How to Create Social Strategy[07:09] Leveraging Your Departments in Your Strategy[08:32] Start with the Most Critical Things to Your Organization.Notable QuotesI think that when you build your social strategy, it has to align with something that you want to achieve. I always talk about you know, whenever I talk about social media strategy and creating those business objectives at the very beginning, I start with the language of CEOs right the language of exile. It's either more sales or lesser expenses. And either those lead to greater profit. And indeed, there's a number of things you can do to help you achieve that.But obviously, social media really started out as a form of outward communications. So that's why you had public relations, you had marketing, and corporate communications are usually the early adopters. Moving beyond that we've seen, obviously, as more and more consumers engage with companies, we've seen social media for customer service come alive.And it's a matter of, you know, training, the rest of them, learning best practices, a lot of this training I do for a lot of companies, and really getting everybody involved in social selling.Every company has different business objectives. Every department has different objectives, different strategies for the year, but it really comes down to, you know, have a meeting, what are we trying to achieve this year, and it's very, very similar to how I consult with my clients. As I always say social media is half science, how far I can teach the science. But there's a certain application or the applied part of it is something that's going to be unique to your company, to your brand, to your situation, to your strategy, to your specific objectives for who you are, and why your business or organization is in existence. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

As companies create more content, more of that content will be illegally copied on the Internet. Find out what you can do to protect your content and fight those who steal it.Key Highlights[00:55] Today's Topic: Content[01:10] The Need to Create Exclusive Content[02:07] Don't Create Content Just for the Sake of Creating Content[02:47] The Importance of Content[04:33] My Advice on How to Avoid Content Scraper[05:15] How to deal With People Reposting Your Content?[06:03] Do Google Alerts[06:17] Using Plugins Like TyntNotable QuotesAnd one of the trends was undoubtedly the need to create exclusive content that you own unique and exclusive, that you can publish on your website share on social media, and what have you that perhaps some companies are trying to do too much engaging in social, when they should be creating more content that will help them scale their engagement.The more people that join social media, and the more content that we all publish, the harder it's going to be for any single given piece of content to be viewed by anybody. And that's just going to continue unless you adopt paid social, or pay a little bit for native or display advertising.When you blog, make accounts, and try to create unique content for unique audiences. Don't just copy and paste what you've done elsewhere, make something unique for that audience geared towards the audience.  And I think that your content marketing and social media efforts will be all the better because of that.So the first thing is if you're thinking of doing this don't unless you ask someone for their permission to republish your content on their website, you do not have permission.And it really comes down to us as content creators and content publishers, to let people know that it's not alright, now I take a pretty aggressive stance, and I don't, you know, time is money, I don't like to waste too much time on this.Some people think I go a little bit aggressive on it. Like I said, you know, if you publish content, you know, the time it takes to craft well thought content on the internet, it's not a trivial thing. And people shouldn't have the right to obviously, steal that content very, very easily.But, you know, if you had asked for permission, that's one thing, but I want to promote my content on my website, right? You know, what gives you the right to promote write your own content. That's really the message that I always tell people. If you have some expertise is something to share, add value to the blogosphere, instead of just copying everybody else's.  Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

My firsthand experience of blogging on LinkedIn - and why and how you can leverage the power of the LinkedIn publishing platform.Key Highlights[01:41] How Are We Going to Use LinkedIn Platform[02:04] LinkedIn's Special Audience[03:33] Give Your LinkedIn Publishing Post Some TLC[06:02] LinkedIn Send You Lots of Traffic[06:31] Treat Your LinkedIn Homepage As Your Website[07:37] LinkedIn is About Quality[07:58] How to Get Access to LinkedIn Publishing PlatformNotable QuotesI'm sure you all are as well, even though it's not always possible, of really sending the right message to the right audience. And LinkedIn really is a special audience.I realized that, you know, the LinkedIn publishing platform is not worthy of a status update. It is worthy of something deeper. So it's my belief that if you give your LinkedIn publishing posts, a little bit of TLC, and this goes beyond just you know, publishing content, whether it's unique content, or duplicate content, of giving it a little bit of TLC, and really reserving what you publish on LinkedIn to that platform, and you're not just trying to lead people elsewhere.But I believe that if you do that, and if your audience is receptive, well, the LinkedIn audience is receptive to what you write, and they send social signals where they like it and they share it, and they comment on it. I do believe that you're going to get some pretty wide exposure for your post case in point. LinkedIn is its own ecosystem, its own ecosystem that can drive a lot of traffic. It's not going to your blog or your website, it's going to your LinkedIn profile, it's going to your content. But I will tell you, I always say, treat your homepage on LinkedIn as if it was your website. It's almost like your second website for personal branding for professionals that don't have their own website, it is their website.And therefore, if you don't have a website, it's going to be even easier for you to use LinkedIn as your blogging platform. But that is how powerful it is.So if you're thinking about just diddling with the LinkedIn blogging platform, and just posting links there and republishing your old content there, I really think you should think twice, and really give the LinkedIn platform, some tender loving care, really craft each post for that audience.You know, LinkedIn is not a matter of quantity, it's amount of quality.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Your comprehensive guide to finding bloggers, auditing them, building relationships with them, and then inviting them to be part of your blogger outreach campaign. Key Highlights[00:57] Dedicated Page of All My Podcast[02:51] My Advice on Doing Blogger Outreach[03:10] 3 Best Practices on Blogger Outreach[03:44] Research the Blogger's Platform[04:46] Other Numbers You Can Determine[05:17] Analyze Their Influence[06:41] Outreach Campaign Starts With Developing Relationships[07:38] Make Sure The Person You Are Reaching Out to is Relevant[08:36] How to do the Actual Outreach CommunicationNotable QuotesSo I have experienced both from that perspective, as well as on the reaching out to other bloggers, but by myself, as well as consulting and advising other companies.But just a down and dirty thing you can do is to research their platform.I still think given, you know, all things being equal, I would prefer to work with someone that actually has a blog, that they're actually publishing their own unique content, their own unique perspective, there's a placeholder there so that when they promote you, it gets indexed by Google, it gets promoted, and people actually have a website they can go to, I just think it'll make your campaign all things given equal.  I think it'll make it more successful.You obviously want to try to find someone that has large numbers in those social networks where you think you're going to be more effective. So this is how you get a little bit more strategic.But look at how these people are engaging on these platforms, right? If it looks like it's all automated, or they're just saying the same thing over and over again. And it looks like they're not being authentic. And you can understand why so many people like or follow them, it could be that they're buying fake followers or bid they're buying fake likes.Your outreach campaign starts with developing relationships with these people, right? So this is how you begin to reach out to them. And I really recommend you think a lot about this. But if it's not relevant to that person, it doesn't make sense, which is another reason why you develop a relationship beforehand to really make sure and ascertain that that's the right person from your campaign.If you don't do it today, start doing it tomorrow. And as you do it over time, you build a relationship so that when you contact them several weeks, a few months down the road, they know that you know who they are, and you already have a relationship, it's going to make your program all that much more, first of all successful at convincing that blogger and more successful. I think what most people forget, like I just said is that bloggers are average human beings just like you and me. They may be known as some sort of rock star in their field of influence. But at the end of the day, they're human beings. They have needs and personalities and emotions, like you and me. So trying to find out what makes that particular blogger tick is a challenge in psychology and sociology, right? Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal interviews Internal Communications expert Rachel Miller while in London about the role of internal communications, internal communications versus public relations, and internal communications best practices.Key Highlights[01:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Rachel Miller[02:50] What is Internal Communication?[03:27 Internal Communication's Role[05:09] Why A Separate Internal Communication Department/Specialist is Important[07:58] Clients Rachel Works With[08:29] Rachel's Blog URL[09:39] Rachel's Advice[12:34] The Approach Rachel Recommends[14:20] The Biggest Social Media Need in the Market[16:26] Make A DifferenceNotable QuotesThe key function and the key role of in internal communication is really to equip and enable and empower employees to have a voice inside an organization.So good internal communications, inside organizations are once you really understand the reality of the of the culture of the workforce.But it's more important than ever before that we really understand that it's not about the egos of being total communicate, it's about information flow inside organizations.And that's why I think internal comms is important is because it is that consistent message, it's that reality of understanding the workforce and understanding the culture and making it real for people.You know, communication is about real people telling real stories about what you know what they're working on.  So I think that one of the key roles for internal communicates is in be in separate function as a distinction is to be that functions to be those eyes and ears.So my advice always is you need to understand where you're going as a business, you know, what's important to you understand where the conversations are happening, and then make smart choices to figure out what what makes sense.Part of my role is really helping companies to think through that and not just introducing something because it's nice to be seen to introduce it, but really think through what is the behavior that we're trying to drive and how we need to communicate differently as an organization? And what do you expect from employees expect from you as a result?I think rather than thinking through organizations, I think what's important is for internal communicators, to equip themselves and to learn and I'm doing lots of coaching and lots of training here in the UK, particularly with groups of internal communicators to really get them aware of what's out there.Keep on sharing good stories, keep on doing what you're doing and constantly looking to learn and grow and make a difference for your employees.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal interviews Mike Gingerich from TabSite on best practices in maximizing your Facebook marketing for your business regardless of size.Key Highlights[00:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mike Gingerich[02:00] Case Studies of Successful Companies Using Tabsite[04:45] Developing Your First Campaign[07:40] Mike's Best Advice for Facebook Marketing in 2014[08:34] Facebook for Business[09:11] Lookalike Audience[13:00] The Benefits of Using Tabsite[15:28] Connect with MikeNotable QuotesAnd the more you engage with the page, the more they will show you contrast that page thinking that's a value to you will show you more of that.I think you first need to know your What are your end goals? Are you trying to build up your reach on your page? Are you trying to get email signups? You need to determine, you know, exactly what what's going to look like success to you. So you have to determine what that is, it needs to be something that's going to be relevant, something that's not going to be too high dollar to you, but it is a value to them to get.So you want to put those as well as communicating that out on your other social channels and your email list and mitt, your website, your blog, that type of thing, then you want to you want to follow up and engage with those people afterwards and know what you're going to do with that information afterwards.I think with Facebook, marketing 2014, it's going to be key to evaluate your your content, what you're posting on Facebook. And in terms of you need to look at your what your goals are.And people say oh, you know, Facebook used to be free now you have to pay. But the converse side of that is that you can get a ad on Facebook. And because Facebook knows so much about you what your Likes are your your interest, those types of things, for the individuals that for business, that's that's a very valuable tool, because you can get very specific and who you target and to reach your audience, whether that's a local audience, or whether that's a specific international global audience.  Facebook can help you reach just that unique target audience.Another quote from my visit to Facebook was when you think mobile think Facebook. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Many businesses see the potential value in Google Plus but few are investing the time they need to results. Join Neal as he interviews Google Plus superstar Amanda Blain and fellow social media marketer Charise Strandberg to learn tips and tricks on how to cross the chasm and derive benefits from a Google Plus presence.Key Highlights[00:50] Introduction of Podcast Guests[02:38] Finding Value in Google Plus[04:26] Google Plus for Professional and Business Objectives[05:22] How Amanda Started Finding Value in Google Plus[07:43] Amanda's Recommendations on Using Google Plus[08:40] Focus on Conversations on Google Plus[09:38] Keep It Real[10:57] Add Variety[12:11] Jetpack Plugin[13:38] Charise's Final Advice[14:24] Amanda's Final AdviceNotable QuotesIt's crucial that they're on there and I think that their competitors are going to be if they're not. So brands need to be aware that they need to consider that a major network or they're going to be catching up later on.But you need to start now you need to get in there, you need to start talking to other people need to start having discussions, and there's lots of room for growth on that side.Even though I have obviously the largest audience on Google Plus, I still think it's important to maintain all of them, all of them serve a different purpose in some way or another, I use Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, everything. I's important to have that level of different platforms, because some people like things and work better in different ways.You have to develop it in a conversation, join other communities that are involved in the topics that you're interested in. And that will take some time, it's not gonna happen overnight. Just like it doesn't happen overnight. When you're at a real life networking event. It takes time to develop relationships. And you have to do that on Google Plus to get the engagement that you want.But I think that will come, I don't think I've seen it, you know, as long as they be consistent about it, and don't just give up and walk away. Like she said, it's, it's gonna come, but it's just finding out what works for them. And keeping a variety on there. Don't just keep putting the same stuff out there, you know, put some funny stuff, put some images, put some valuable information engaged, keep it a variety, and people will enjoy.This is an opportunity to, you know, follow people in your niche and bring people in. So just keep an open mind. I would think and don't put your other networks, as we mentioned, I mean, I'm probably running 14, Foursquare Pinterest. Don't wear yourself out either, but don't be left behind.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I am honored in this episode to interview the one and only Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, as he talks about the upcoming 2nd Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, California in late March, 2014. Learn what differentiates his social media conference from others.Key Highlights[00:29] Introduction of Podcast Guests, Mike Stelzner[01:13] Who is Mike and What Mike Does[02:15] Wat Made Mike Launch from Blog into Physical Social Media Marketing Summits[03:43] The Value of Attending Physical Social Media Conferences[05:07] How Mike Differentiated His Conference from Others[07:01] Mike's Little Secret[08:58] Improving from Last Conferences[10:34] New Speakers Coming In[12:26] Final Thoughts[12:44] Connect with MikeNotable QuotesWhen people ask me about the value of going to social media, conferences, physical ones, you do have the education, but then you do have the networking and you meet people that you may end up working together with, you may end up end up hiring, they may end up hiring you or you make friends for life, it's really a magical thing when you bring people together, so I couldn't agree with you more.I'd thrive on on being able to meet people face to face and actually have conversations and not just like in nightclubs where the music is blaring, and a lot of these other conferences, they had their parties, but they were in nightclubs. And you could you just couldn't hear anything, you know, and it was impossible to network.And you know, it just goes to show that we often forget, but social media is about the social part, right? It's totally about meeting each other. And a lot of people forget about that.But I think the real stuff that happens is when you make those kinds of connections, that could lead to future you know, collaborations, or, like you said, employees or, or just, you know, building deeper relationships with people that you love and respect so that you never know what will happen.I wanted the speakers because this is a social media conference, I wanted the speakers to actually be accessible. So we didn't actually give them a place to go just for them. Instead, we gave everyone the same place to go, which was this massively big placeLearn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Social media is beginning to be taught in universities as a core skill that students will need in the business world. Neal Schaffer interviews two professors at NOVA Southeastern University, Jim Barry and John Gironda, on how they got started with their program, what they teach, and the challenges that they and their students face.Key Highlights[02:11] Introduction of Podcast Guests[03:27] How Jim Started in Teaching Social Media Marketing[05:02] Why You Should Have Courses in Social Media?[07:03] Why Students Take Courses on Social Media[08:45] Areas You Can Get Expert On with Social Media Education[09:55] Hudson Institute for Executive Training[11:03] The Most Challenging Things for Students to Grasp[12:53] The Hardest to Teach About Social Media[14:29] Practical Business Application[15:05] You Have to Walk the Talk[15:23] Connect with John and JimmyNotable QuotesI would say that starts with it's, it's changed the framework for marketing. And it's a different mindset.I would start with the transmitted transmission we're making from outbound to inbound marketing, and the role of content in place of cold calling. So starting with it, just conceptually, I think that becomes more important than changing platform.I think social media marketing is one way to do that to show a tangible field that's growing and popular. And it gives them a chance that no matter what field they go into, I think you've you mentioned that earlier, as we were talking before we started recording no matter what field, you're in having social media expertise can only enhance your marketability.I think as far as the individual platforms that are changing, we've seen that recently, of more platforms becoming more and more popular, and other ones maybe losing popularity, it's still important to look at some sort of universal need, or universal themes that that consumers are engaging in. So it's still important, it's still very worthwhile to teach courses on social media marketing, because I don't think in general the field is it's still going to be around.It almost lies in the fact that students don't realize how much work actually goes into the social media marketing itself. Do you think of the actual the perspiration, we call it, where the legwork that you have to put into it and continually updating your content and be and having fresh content that you kind of just want to, you know, do it once and then walk away and not touch it again.It's difficult to get students to understand how platform works without purpose.So the challenge a lot of times is like, what do you roll out first. And we finally I think we nailed it with you kind of give them a high level overview, a very advanced information that you see over time, you're gonna get a more enriched understanding, taken out of content trail, and after all the content is done and sequenced and amplified, and we get them into right now, how do we get this out there, promoted and activate our communities to where we get a greater following, while we're rolling out our content. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you're accountable for your social media program, you're accountable for your social media ROI. Do you have a strategy in hand?Key Highlights[00:56] The Thing I See Missing About the Debate on ROI of Social Media[01:48] Social Media is Eating A Lot of Marketing Budget[02:21] The Notion of Accountability[02:59] Do You Really Need to Invest That Much in Social Media?[04:21] Are You Employing Best Practices in Maximizing the ROI of Your Marketing Budget?[05:12] Are You Being Accountable for What You're Spending?[07:29] Maximize Your EffortsNotable QuotesI think the thing that's missing, and I talked about this in Maximizer, social how social media is a never ending, changing landscape. And therefore there's a need to be nimble to be measuring to experiment to try new things.There's a notion of accountability and everything you do. And I think this is the missing piece in the social media ROI debate, that you are accountable for what you invest in, the company is accountable, whoever approves, especially when companies say, well, we want to own social media, okay?If you want to rise above the noise, it's commonly or I would say, it is going to be more and more so that it is going to be a pay to play scenario for what it's worth.With the evolution of social business, we're all starting to work together and And the more you know, social media becomes an important part of your business as it begins to be used enterprise wide, there's obviously going to be more oversight into well, what are we spending?But I do believe there's going to be a time when the accountability question will be called in when sales start to fall, when profits start to fall, we need to cut budget, where are we going to cut it?Let's call it a social business strategy, where ideally, you have influential stakeholders internally that have written off on where you are measuring what you're doing. And your social media activities are aligned with your business objectives. Without doing that, you know, you really run the risk of potentially not only losing your budget, but losing your job.If you haven't read, maximize your social in that book really is all about really creating that social media strategy and and measuring the ROI so that you know that you are 100% accountable for every dollar that you spend in your social media program.But even within that, whatever allocation you have all you really maximizing your efforts, and that's really where I think a robust social media strategy creation, maintenance and optimization comes into play.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

I recently had a chat with fellow social media marketing professionals Debbie Miller and Albert Qian, both of whom want to get started podcasting. Listen to my advice, given while enjoying a bowl of ramen in the food court of a local Japanese supermarket!Key Highlights[00:29] Introduction of Podcast Guests[02:17] Podcast Guest #1: Albert Qian[03:16] Podcast Guest #2: Debbie Miller[04:02] Why Albert and Debbie Decide to Podcast Rather than Video Blog?[06:07] How to Get Started on Podcast: Equipment[07:39] Where Did I Start Doing Podcast[08:46] The Challenge I Had in Podcasting[09:03] Working on My Intro and Outro[11:34] How I Upload My Podcast[12:48] Promoting the Podcast[13:49] One of the Downsides of Sony IC RecorderNotable QuotesSo you know, I'm interested in podcasting, because I think it's another great avenue to reach my audience and you know, build more content. And a lot of people don't like to read these days, they'd rather listen. And so I want to give my future audiences here and the ability to consume what I have to say in a different way.For me, podcasting, at least recording my voice into a microphone is a lot quicker.You don't need some high powered device to do it. Now. There's a lot of podcasters who invest money, they have their own, you know, environment and, and that's all awesome, but I think that intimidates a lot of people. And to get started, I'd say you can even use your iPhone, you don't even need to invest in anything more right.So I think having someone like that it requires a monthly expenses, not a lot of money, but it requires someone's time. That's the approach it I don't have the time, I just want to concentrate on the content. And I also realized that if I'm going to have people subscribe to my podcast, I need something exclusive that my other networks don't have.I'm trying to maybe blog about my podcast and maximize your social, but really stick to the podcast content. But then when I went broader thought leadership type of content, that's where I blog on maximize social business. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What social media trends should businesses pay attention to in the new year? I explain the major trends that will help your business continue your social media success into the new year.Key Highlights[01:35] Trends Emerged in 2013 that I Think Are Going to Get Stronger in 2014.[01:55] The Strategic Initiative of Employee Advocacy[04:33] The Year of Google Plus[05:27] Companies that Leverage Google Plus[06:19] Paid Social Will Be Fully Mainstream[07:51] More Emphasis on Content Creation[09:15] It's All About EvolutionNotable QuotesNow, companies are always looking outside corporate walls for brand advocates and social media. But many of your most passionate advocates are also those who have deep ties to your company. They're your employees. Each individual employee has influence in their own unique social network, their own professional and personal graph. The more employees that can help share your social media messages. The broader reach a company can yield and social media. I do see that creating a successful employee advocacy program. It has its challenges. But the evolution of both social business, as well as employee advocacy platforms and tools should progress this program forward in many companies in 2014. Once companies realize that Google Plus is not just a community, like other social networks, but it's also a social layer for all things. Google with many entry ways leading into Google Plus, it becomes an absolute no brainer to establish a presence on the site.Social media was never free, due to the fact that an investment of time and resources was always needed, right. And if online ad budgets are available, it only makes sense to shift some of this money into social advertisements to help make your social program more effective.I still believe paid social is one of the most underutilized aspects of social media marketing. But 2014 should see more companies utilizing paid advertising on more social networks, to help make sure above and beyond their legacy social media program, that they are found by relevant audiences throughout social media.At the end of the day, okay, it is unique, branded content, whether it be in the form of a blog post, a photo, a video, audio, presentation, or other medical format. It's these types of contents that become a shareable corporate asset in social media.Together with the rise of content marketing, a content centric social media marketing strategy will become all the more important to help businesses rise above the noise, and be more effective in their social media practice.It's all about this evolution. And the evolution is caused by more and more people using the sites, using them in different ways, and the site's themselves maturing.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Have you ever shared a Circle on Google Plus or seen others sharing one? Learn about their hidden powers and how to leverage what most businesses have yet to figure out!Key Highlights[01:43] The Advantage of Google Plus[02:49] Looking at the Early Days of Twitter[02:58] The Challenge with Google Plus[04:18] My Suggestions For You with Google Plus[04:47] The Initial Step of Engagement You Should Be Doing[05:11] One of the Interesting Things You Can Do to Engage in Google Plus[05:24] The Power of Circle Sharing[06:55] Why Circle Sharing?[07:55] Circle Sharing As A Form of Engagement[10:11] The Most Underutilized Aspect of Social Media MarketingNotable QuotesI do believe it is starting to reach that tipping point where people are no longer asking, Well, I thought Google Plus was a ghost town, or why should my company be on it? And realizing that it is a natural extension of a communication channel that your social media program should make sure it encompasses, right.And it hurts me that also, no one is talking about LinkedIn, it's just a place where you go to look for a job, people realize that it is a professional networking environment with, you know, obviously chances to exhibit your thought leadership to learn, and also to develop new business relationships.I'll talk about my experiment a bit is obviously you want to find those people that are actually engaging on Google Plus.I saw a lot of people sharing that I thought, you know, what, I want to help other people find those that are actually engaging with my content. In other words, these are people that are plus money that are commenting that are sharing, they're real people. And they have an interest in social media content, which a lot of my other followers do as well, people are on Google Plus not just looking for information, but to find other people to follow into to make new relationships, right.So by looking at the circles that are shared by the people that you respect, and that you follow, it gives you a good introduction to people that have been vetted, that you may want to follow as well.It's about really the people and bringing people together because of a common interest. And I believe, and this is one of the most underutilized aspects of social media marketing.I believe that brands business pages, sharing circles of their fans, ideally, fans that have engaged with them, right, but sharing circles with their fans and highlighting their fans. I think that can be a very, very special way to engage with your fans to thank your fans, to build a deeper relationship with your fans. And most of all, to create that community so that fans can discover each other. And thank you for that and really build a stronger and deeper community, as a byproduct of that data is something okay, that you can't do on any other platform.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Many find their biggest social media challenge to be an internal one: How to convince your executive team of your social media investment. Here's some advice on how to explain your social media team internally, build consensus, and receive more recognition (and budget) for your activities. Key Highlights[00:59] Go Big or Go Home Approach[02:05] Everybody is Doing Social Media[02:31] The Two Different Types of Companies I See[03:59] The Challenge of Selling Social Media Internally[05:54] Reasons Why Executives Are Fearful of Social Media[06:30] My Advice on Convincing People Internally[07:44] Write Internal Reports Regularly[07:54] Paint Holistic Picture of Your Social Media ProgramNotable QuotesIf you're gonna make content, make account instead of just trying to churn out things on a regular basis.And I think at this point, now, it really depends on what level your social media program or your social media literacy is at. But my feeling as we end 2013 is, look, everybody is doing social media, right?We need to be where our customers are, we need to be innovative, and we need to be ahead of them. And this is why they have this very innovative and aggressive approach to being whatever platform their customer might be on.And that is the challenge of selling social media internally, you have these companies that are pretty famous companies that have robust social media presences. Yet, they are not fully understood internally.Because you as no matter what you represent in your company, you can read books, you can listen to podcasts, you can experiment, and I always say social media isn't rocket science was made for people by people. And therefore when businesses learn to engage alongside other people as people and offer value, I think you will be able to find a lot of different ways to become more effective and achieve whatever objective you have, and there's a lot more tools out there that helped us do that as well. But convincing people internally is the challenge, because it really requires people to change their mindset. And when we think of people internally, these are people, often in companies, they are older people that have very firm mindsets, they were perhaps successful at a part of their career before social media even existed. So when I wrote maximize your social X, he wrote it with the intent of both, whether you're an executive, or you're a social media marketer, or what have you, you'll be able to really, you know, improve your social media literacy, and be able to see why you should be investing more and not left in social media.But I wanted to share with you my advice for the social media director at this consumer brand, as to how to convince people internally and knowing the challenge, it really does come down to education is number one.You really need to whittle social media down to data and case studies, what have you. So anytime there's a chance to educate and educate with data with white papers with outside authoritative third party resources. That is obviously one of the best things you should be doing. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

While in Toronto speaking, Neal interviews @ValTorontoGal from Charming Media and @MegButton from Star Content Studios for advice that a Public Relations as well as Content Marketing Agency can offer your business.Key Highlights[01:15] Introduction of Podcast Guests[02:48] How Social Media Can Help Companies[04:25] Meg and Val's Worst Experiences[08:27] Tips that Help Meg and Val Achieve Greatness in Social Media[10:37] The Value of Working with Content and PR AgenciesNotable QuotesI generally like to say, well, for us, because you're doing such a big traditional media awareness campaign, it's very good to support it with any type of social media support, especially if you're working with, you know, online publications, bloggers, they're gonna be mentioning your brand online, they're going to be talking to online. It is a natural complement. And it's almost a shame to be focusing all your attention in one area and not on that area as well.And the biggest thing that I would tell them is, you know, it's it's very easy to get excited and overwhelmed and all those good things, but it's always about your audience. And to me, that's where it always has to start, whether you're talking about social media or any type of media, it you know, it's it's overwhelming, but it's also exciting.So to me, that's, that's the biggest thing that I'm seeing is that they're everyone's looking for a quick, short route to get to kind of the holy grail of having an engaging brand. And you don't realize that there's a lot of work that goes into it.I think it's, it's really it's people are very used to seeing like, a direct and really fast ROI. And that's social media can happen. It can be really fast and explode.I think it helps to really find good brand ambassadors to help you push out your content. It's one thing if you're, you know, tweeting about what you like from your brand and Facebooking about it. But if you have good genuine brand ambassadors, I think that's a great way to really enhance everything that you're doing.But often the proof really just sets the record straight. And I find that sometimes if you're not getting a lot of traction, go to the statistics look and find proof for what you're saying and validate your points. And that really was very successful for a last campaign that we did with one of our clients.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A real-life analogy to help you understand how social selling is all about using social media to find information relevant to selling as well as choose the most effective communication channel to help engage with the prospective buyer.Key Highlights[01:12] What is Social Selling / Social Sales[02:27] What Happened to Me that Illustrates What Social Selling is About[04:37] An Example of an Aggressive, Awesome Salesperson[05:36] There's Data Everywhere on the Internet[06:10] Things You Can Do As Part of Social Selling[08:16] The Different Channels to CommunicateNotable QuotesAnd so this gentleman was very smart. He was reading the data reading the information that was right relevant, that he knew that every single person that's posting a do business as advertisement is one of his potential business banking clients.But the fact that this person used the data to contact me. In other words, this data appears in a lot of different forms.But there's lots of hints of people that may be looking to buy a product or service that either you or your competitors can easily find in social media. And that's part of the social selling is, you know, as a salesperson why, you know, I wonder where am I going to develop my next lead marketing can only get you so far, sometimes you need to do a little bit of prospecting, right? And you need to build up your pipeline. And that business tool allows you to efficiently within a single dashboard, do keyword searches, or perhaps decide if you're already connected to someone which channel you want to use to send them a message. But it's important to understand the concepts, the concepts of sales have not changed. Social media is not going to help you get 100% of your business. It complements what you've been doing. But if you understand the power of that data, and being able to find that data and contact the person, and the different channels available to you and different ways of engaging with those people, I think you'll see why social selling is a compelling topic for anyone in sales. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A look into how information technology and project managers can proactively use social media and add value in a social business world.Key Highlights[01:3] IT Professionals' Roles in Social Business Strategy[02:47] 4 Areas Where Information Technology Professionals Can Add Value In A Social Business World[02:58] Managing the Growing Volume and Complexity of Content[04:28] The Advantages of Having A Blog[05:36] Leading on Google Authorship and Google Plus[09:15] Role in Employee Advocacy[12:28] Managing Social Big DataNotable QuotesAlso, I made a point to tell everybody, because it obviously there's a lot of people who knew about the tools that you know, there's a traditional sort of definition of social business or the social enterprise that emphasizes the tools.So, you know, the other important thing is that people are contacting companies, after they've already made a decision whether or not that whether or not they want to do business with them based on information that they found on the internet, and a lot more of that data is coming from social media.Google Authorship is not hard to do. But are companies ready to attach an author to each piece of content. I said, obviously, the SEO benefits are critical.And at the minimum, you're basically directing Google to let them know what content what websites where all your digital properties are, and allow them to understand your social layer, so that they could give your potential website visitors more relevant search results, right?But obviously, your employees as brand advocates for your company, are probably your biggest untapped trusted resource.And this is just a classic quote that I love from Nathan Egan, who's the founder and CEO of one of these employee advocacy platforms called people links that quote, your company has 1000s of websites, not just one, employees are the long tail of your brand identity and quote, Isn't that brilliant?But I think that companies will wake up. And as companies wake up, they need to have platforms, they need to have people to create content, to share content. And IT professionals or project managers, wherever people may be in that department.Social Big Data is here. Some companies are leveraging it, more and more companies will be leveraging it, get ahead of the game, be prepared, so that when people ask, you're already ready. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal provides a great resource to allow you to benchmark how well you are Maximizing Your Social, SEO and mobile aspects of your own website.Key Highlights[00:27] Benchmarking Your Website's SEO[02:36] Analyzing Some Data Set[03:00] Data You Should Be Considering[03:50] Hummingbird and What Company Should Do[06:40] SEO Mobile[06:50] Mobile SEO Statistics[08:21] Why LinkedIn Is Significant[10:27] Always Have A Link to Your Socials in Your WebsiteNotable QuotesAnd it's very interesting, the more and those of you that are involved in SEO, or even do website development and get access to web analytics, it's very interesting to see obviously, the differences between those companies that are very active in social and not as well as those companies that seem to do better at SEO than other companies. And I'm really looking for a barometer a benchmark, so that you can compare yourself and see where you may need to be improving things.But, you know, what I said was, you know, what Google giveth, Google also taketh away. It's an algorithm that's constantly changing, they make mistakes, and they, you know, remedy them in future updates. I know that I have seen some effects from hummingbird as well.  And you know, what, you you live with it, and you try to improve everything that you're doing, and especially just creating more unique and great content, right. I also think that at some point that search engine traffic should convert she you should be getting some more direct traffic. At some point that search engine traffic should convert so that you're getting more backlinks. And if you're getting a heck of a lot of search engine traffic, knowing that it's never any guarantee, you're going to continue to get that I'd really work on those two things. I don't think that these are good barometers per se, I really think it's going to be different depending on your industry. But I think they're good numbers to consider that LinkedIn indeed, can generate a lot of traffic, but you need to be newsworthy, I think in order to generate that traffic from LinkedIn. Other than that, you know, you really should have a link to your main social media property somewhere on your website, whether it's above the fold below the fold is a whole different story.So if you've linked social media profiles to your corporate page, congratulations, you're ahead of two thirds of these companies that were being looked at in this specific report.You know, whenever I find data like this, I think provides good benchmarking data for you to compare yourself with and for you to include as part of your you know, your KPIs, or your metrics for analyzing both your social media and your entire digital presence.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Jay Baer, the author of Youtility, shares the background to his book as well as his perspectives on mobile, content marketing, social media, and business.Key Highlights[00:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jay Baer[05:02] The Concept of Youtility[07:40] Why Marcus Sheridan?[10:27] Jay's Strategic Tips for Mobile[12:50] The Importance of Identifying Customer Needs[15:54] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesI think a much more viable approach in today's marketing climate is to just be useful, that if you are truly and inherently useful if you create marketing that is so good, and so useful that people would pay for it, which is really the definition of utility, good things will happen.What I felt we were missing is a strategic framework for why to create content, there's lots of companies out there making lots of stuff, without a real good understanding of what role content really plays and how content really supports other organizational initiatives.Now that you know, it's not about what are you doing on the web, and then what parts of that can you do effectively via mobile, it really needs to be upside down and say, Let's maximize our mobile experience.The notion of really drilling down to understand customer needs is perhaps the most important and unfortunately, I think we are largely derelict in that responsibility. You think that you understand your customers based on data, but in many cases, you really don't. So if you're not having actual conversations with your customers on a regular basis, that, frankly, is the first step to being a utility.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

An interview with Jayson Duncan of Miller Farm Media talking about the convergence of the art of video and social media.Key Highlights [00:22] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jayson Duncan[01:37] The FFFirst Thing Jayson Recommends to Clients Who Want to Record Video[02:40] The Adven of Social Media and Popularity of YouTube[03:07] How to Convey Emotion In A Video[04:28] The Core of Who Your Company Are and What You Do[05:12] How Jayson Helps His Clients Find Hidden Stories[06:08] Quality Forms of Video[08:03] The ROI of Video Marketing[11:19] Should A CEO Be Out In A Video?[12:40] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesThey need to think about the story they want to tell, and they need to make sure that their that story is cohesive across all the social media channels, it really needs to take a lot of time to think how does this fit our brand overall, as this voice fit that brand.It goes back to terms overused, but content is king. So having content that fits your brand and hits all the metrics you're trying to hit is very important tells that story. The next piece is that story needs to have an emotion to it. People buy emotionally, they don't buy rationally. So what is the emotion that your video is going to have to engage the audience?My answer circles back around it actually is about storytelling. And that's really the best way find out what you do that's unique, how you've got above and beyond why you do what you do those all their stories and all of that. And that's really what can take your video to the next level.We really take the time to get to know them. And that's one of the best parts of this job is you get to learn things about people and see behind the scenes of places that no one else is really allowed to go. Because you've you've got to find those stories.So it's about finding that happy medium. The hard part is that video is expensive, no matter how you slice it. I mean, there's always someone that's willing to work cheaper, and you can always find that guy, but there's risks there, too. So what do you do as a business, you have to know that at least to get a decent picture and a decent audio.And more than anything, I realized that video really is an art in many ways, and not just the storytelling, but there's so many different ways to tell that story visually, audibly, that are all going to create these unique emotions that we went through.And I think a lot of people probably think of video as something well, it's part of an infrastructure in order for us to humanize our brand and tell our story. It's something that if we have a website, we should have a video up there that really, you know, tries to to bring people in and get them deeper into our website and you know, contact us but also that tactical way of thinking about your marketing funnel. And really to look at video, how can it enhance every step of the customer experience from when they first contact you to now they're satisfied, they're happy customers, and we want to get more, have them refer people to us and get more business from them and all those things.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What are the three things that CEOs should be worried about concerning their social media programs?Key Highlights[01:26] There's No Cookie Cutter Approach in Social Media[01:44] 3 Things CEOs Should Be Concerned About As They Become More Active in Social Media[02:32] Voice as An Integral Part of Social Media Strategy[03:30] Have A Strategic Voice[04:17] You Need to Listen[04:34] What is Social Media Crisis?[06:05] Leverage Tools[07:17] Tools You Can Use[08:05] Engage!Notable QuotesAnd if you have read maximize your social, you know how I talk about voice being an integral part of your social media strategy, and that most companies have brand guidelines that don't cover voice. And this is critical.The voice of your brand, is the voice of that person. And that may not be the message that you want to send out to the public or your target audience. And this is a mistake that I think a lot of small and medium sized businesses have. So I think it's really point number one is really, what is the brand image that you're projecting the social media, is that voice aligned with your social media strategy?And there's really no one answer to that, because there really is no cookie cutter approach. It really comes down to your brand, and what is important about your brand.But I do want to say that most of the negative things that happen in social media can be avoided just by responding and responding quickly and responding appropriately, and taking the conversation offline.And with social media, it's not about the tools, it's about the people, it's about engaging. And if there's a tool that can help you scale in a relevant way, why not, but I think that a lot of marketers are just infatuated with the tools and the tools, cost money, and don't necessarily help them be more effective. What is the objective that it's helping us meet as an organization, right? I don't think that you should just throw money at everything in anything in social media, and that every tool is going to help you become more efficient, because you're still going to do engage with people, you're still going to need to find people engage with them respond to what have you.Your engagement breeds engagement, right? And humans can't scale. But it's always recognizing those important people. And always making sure that you personally engage with them, I think is really one of the critical things that you need to make sure you do even if you delegate some responsibility that what's important comes from you. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The launch of the rebranded Maximize Your Social podcast (formerly Social Business Unplugged) goes into creating the importance of special moments with your social media followers as well as leveraging the ever-changing visual social networks and visual components within social media channels. Key Highlights[00:33] Rebranding My Online Presence[02:35] Giving Back to Your Network, Partner, and Customers in Social Media[03:28] "Enchantment"[05:06] Leveraging the Visual[06:24] Why You Should Be On Pinterest[07:12] Images Are Now Bigger and Wider[07:57] What You Need to Do to Optimize?[08:33] Remember the Recommended Facebook Dimension[11:06] Why Visuals Are ImportantNotable QuotesAs far as content curation, and engaging with influencers, but have we ever taken a step back and said, You know what, let's go out there and just thank those that have supported us that maybe we think before.It's creating just a very, very special moment that can deepen your relationship with someone by 10x. It's really just going out of your way and thanking people.But it's really doing these little things that make a big difference in the lives of people and it makes a big difference in the lives of your partners, your customers and, and social media. We forget it's about the people, right?The thing to note about the visual is it's changing very, very quickly.It just all the more reason why the visual is more and more important not only as content itself, but as that eye candy to draw others into discovering your content in social networks.So if search engine optimization and getting discovered as important for your company and your visual company, well gives you even more reason to be on Pinterest, even if you're not a visual company, there are ways of utilizing Pinterest.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

An interview with Tammy Kahn Fennell, founder and CEO of MarketMeSuite, on the evolution of social media dashboards and social productivity.Key Highlights[00:45] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Tammy Kahn Fennell[02:01] The Evolution of Social Media Dashboards and How Businesses Should Be Using Them[05:24] The Challenge[06:30] Where MarketMeSuite Is Trying to Excel[09:19] Social Media Productivity and Efficiency[11:04] Tying Social Media Data for Business Efficiency[13:09] Three Ways Businesses Should Be Making More Use of Social Media DashboardNotable QuotesSo I think from a business perspective, businesses are being forced, by just the way social media is evolving to get a little more integrated, and really get organized so that once you organize, you can then prioritize them. Once you prioritize, you can actually gauge but missing those first two steps, could mean that you're just you know, you're approaching it from all different angles. And you could burn out on that and not actually get the true value out of using something.Where we found our sweet spot at market me sweet is that we don't want or need our companies to, or small businesses are professionals or solo entrepreneurs or bloggers, we're not expecting them to ever grow up and be Coca Cola, we want them to continue to be the best, you know, business that they are the best, the best social engager that they are. And we tried to build a tool that is very, that fits their unique needs.But the data that the message is in the prioritization, that that's there when you can figure out the most important conversations, it's incredibly actionable.I think that the other thing about being a tech startup in this particular lead digital world is that you have to understand that you need to play nicely with other tools and be very understanding of the fact that people do have unique workflows, and that people are going to do it in the way that makes sense for them.But I think that it's it's a very, it's a very good approach for a startup to have to say, you know, we are a, we are a very important piece of this puzzle. But we know that we fit in with the greater the greater mosaic.It's called follow up. And you know, that's that's what we do now in the in the social and the digital world is and a lot of people forget it. So if you've engaged with somebody, why not flag them? Why not mark them as a lead? Why not figure that out? By the way, you can do all these things in marketing suite so that you can just remember to interact with them. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

WordPress is free, but if you want to get the most out of your CMS for inbound marketing, here are 10 recommended paid services that you should look into.Key Highlights[00:55] Paid Services for WordPress[02:02] 10 Paid Services That I Think You Should Be Investing[03:38] Genesis[04:37] Web Hosting: WP Engine[08:42] wpsitecare.com[10:24] Security Plugin[11:07] Landing Page Plugin[13:33] Stock Images Site[14:35] Contact Form Plugin[15:38] Magic Action Box ProNotable QuotesSo a backup service is something you should also consider. But considering the WP Engine included as part of the web hosting, well, it just makes a lot of sense to go with them. And it's not just that I've had security issues like many other sites do.And that's the advantage of going with a company that is dedicated to WordPress, in fact, automatic, you know, the organization that is responsible for maintaining WordPress, outside of the open source they have invested in WP Engine.So really, really great and technology that you should really consider paying for if you don't have a great landing page technology.So these people can immediately be added into your marketing automation funnel, great technology, Gravity Forms something that you should definitely look into having for your own website.On a similar note, I'm gonna the last three services, I'm going to talk about our actual, you know, pure marketing pure sort of call to action, how do we send out a call to action somewhere in our blog, that's going to get people's attention, that's going to focus them to go into a landing page or click for some sort of action for some sort of objective. So you want to experiment, put it up for one day, leave it off the other day and you know see what the difference is.But I hope by showing you what is possible for paying either a monthly or a one time fee. And the fees don't have to be a lot of money. You can easily and efficiently and I believe inexpensively run a very, very high grade always up to date, efficient and efficient from a code perspective as well as a marketing perspective website. You know, the more you rely on inbound marketing, for generating leads, the more you need to invest in your website, because that's really going to be and your social media, obviously.But the website becomes your key marketing infrastructure. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Are you overlooking the potential power of video to help promote your brand? Read on about why Neal Schaffer chose to create a book trailer for Maximize Your Social - and why you should invest in video, too.Key Highlights[01:17] Reminder: Video Is Important![03:06] What Video Is About[03:43] Other Types of Embeddable Content[04:19] Why Video Is Important[05:55] Content Should Be Entertaining, Resourceful, and Shareable[06:04] My Advice For You[07:00] An Example of A Successful Video[08:51] Contact An Expert[09:38] Go Big or Go HomeNotable QuotesYou know, it's funny, in social media, we always look at the shiny new thing, you know, Facebook, or Pinterest, or Instagram, these are all actually very old by now. But it's funny that we look at those platforms. And we always will, we tend to forget about blogs, but not that much. But we often forget about video. Video requires a lot of resource if you really want to do it right. And you should do it right. There is no other medium that allows you to connect with your potential audience and video. I mean, it's you It's love. It's as close to seeing you or something in person. It has this effect and we've all grown up watching movies and TV and maybe that's part of it. It is the most powerful medium, you can create a very, very deep bond. But I think it comes down to your social media strategy, your objective, and as part of your social media strategy, you're gonna have the little content piece, what's going to be the content, right? Content in a social media strategy is always resourceful and shareable. But I think that there are entertaining ways of showing educational content. nd for me go you know, the process of working with a professional video company of actually going through the story, you know, the storyboard, what type of animation are we going to have?It's been a great experience, video is an art. If you think you can do it yourself, you're really missing out on a lot of potential. And if you're gonna invest the money and do it.If you're only going to do a few videos a year versus doing a blog post once a month, or once a week. Make a count, make those videos count. You don't need to video blog as much as you normally blog or do as many videos as blog posts. But like I said when you do them I really think you want to do them right and I think that you have the ability to get a lot more amplification of your content than a blog post for a wide variety of reasons.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The background for and importance of auditing your social media, with a concrete example comparing the Facebook presence of two hotels.Key Highlights[01:16] Social Media Audits[01:45] Creating Baseline Numbers[02:29] Create a Role Model[02:52] The Notion of Audit[04:00] Is It A Good Ideal to Compare Yourself with the Competition?[04:32] Notion of Social Proof[04:46] Where the Role of Audit Comes In[06:01] Looking at the Organic Growth Rate[08:01] Number of Like Is Meaningless[08:30] Getting A Sense of the Engagement[10:56] 2 Easy Things You Can Do to AuditNotable QuotesSo part of this feeds into the fact that you have to have a plan, you have to have a social media strategy, you have to be measuring, you have to be optimizing, that's a no brainer. But part of that social media strategy is creating baseline numbers of how others in your industry are doing.But if there's a new platform that you're not familiar with, your company is just engaging and if you think it may be important for your social media strategy, how are you going to get started, create a role model, right?Look at other companies in your industry, or similar industries that have seemingly done well, it's always hard to know if a company is doing well or not in social media. Because the number of likes the number of views is meaningless. It comes down to are they meeting their business objectives, and that information is not for public consumption, obviously.And the audit actually helps you create your social media strategy. It helps you create baseline metrics. But you know, number of likes in itself is not the only metric. I don't even know how meaningful of a metric it is. But once again, with social proof, I guess there is some value to it.    Now, number of likes is meaningless. We're not going to buy likes, obviously, we're going to target our target audience.  We want to keep our brands fresh in the minds of our fans.So I'm hoping that this gets you thinking about your own brand, or the brand that you represent, or sell to, or service or what have you. And that it gets you into a habit of doesn't have to be all the time, maybe monthly basis, maybe quarterly basis. Look around and see what your competition is doing. Create some of these baseline metrics for the few of the platforms.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Engagement, relevance and relationships are as important in social media marketing as they are in email marketing.Key Highlights[00:41] My AHA Moments on Best Practices with Email Marketing[02:18] Email Providers Getting Better at Filtering Spam[02:48] What Gmail Has Done Recently[03:35] What Happens When You Send A Lot of Emails[04:06] More Engagement, Better Relationships[05:01] Make People Stay Longer in Your Site[05:30] Best Practice in Email Marketing[05:58] Create Engaging and Relevant Content[08:09] Broad Terms that People Overuse or OvergeneralizeNotable QuotesBut it was interesting, because what's happening in the world of email marketing, is that the old days of just blasting a message out and it getting into the inboxes of people are obviously gone.But really what happens is every list that is out there has a reputation that is attached to it, brands have reputations. We have social media reputations, right? Well, lists are the same. The providers are trying to deliver good service to their customers trying to keep the spam out.And they're trying to make you realize that your list has a reputation attached to it. And the higher that reputation is, in other words, the more relevant that content is to your audience that you send out to, the fewer notices of spam you get, the more clicks you get within your emails. So the more engagement you have within those emails, the better relationships you have, you know, it's about engagement, relevance, and relationships, right? The more deliverable those emails are going to come. In other words, from a search engine perspective, you would rather introduce content that is more engaging, more relevant, and therefore, people are staying on your page longer.It really comes down to that same notion of engagement. Is your content engaging or people engaging with it? Whether it's a share a link that's clicked or even a comment? And is it relevant? are they sticking around, you know, checking out your site for other pages?But the more engaging your content is, the more people show to right, it's really as simple as that. So you need to create content that's relevant. And that's something that people engage with. And you need to ask people to engage with it sometimes.  But at the end of the day, for these social networking sites to survive, because one of the primary forms of revenue that they get or generate is from advertising, they need to make sure that your content is engaging, or they're only showing engaging content.It comes down to creating engaging content and engaging with others. And from that, creating relationships, obviously, the deeper relationships you have with your readers, with your followers, the more engagement you're going to get right. So engagement, relationships, relevance, these are really broad terms that sometimes people overuse or overgeneralize. But really, we're starting to see that this is affecting our email marketing, or SEO, and definitely, especially on Facebook, or social media marketing. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The truth about Facebook's recent changes: Nothing changed. You still need a data-driven approach to Facebook - and social media - marketing.Key Highlights[01:00] Recent Changes with Facebook[02:38] How EdgeRank Works[03:42] The Notion of nTime Decay and Notion of Affinity[04:05] Reintroducing Posts Into Your Newsfeed[04:48] Every Facebook Post Counts[06:36] Have A Data-Driven Approach in Social MediaNotable QuotesAnd I mean, really, Facebook uses an algorithm, okay, they want you to come back to the site more, they want to expose content that they think that you will like, because you'll spend more time on the site, and therefore, they're going to sell you or they're going to be able to get more advertising revenue, because you're on the site longer or what have you.In fact, the more you engage with content, the better they know you and the more targeted ads, they can serve you, meaning that they're going to maximize their profit as well.But, you know, perhaps the weight of the content just really isn't that important anymore. Because I don't know if you've noticed, but if you've done experiments on Facebook, recently, I find that just sending out the good old status update gets, you know, four to five times more impressions than sending out a photo or a video. But unless people really engage with them, you're not gonna get nearly as many impressions as you get with just sending out a unique status update, which forces you to be creative and forces you to be engaging.And what Facebook is basically saying is we think we know what posts you're gonna engage with. And we're going to make sure that you see those posts, even if you glance over them. So what they're doing is basically reintroducing these posts into your newsfeed.So in essence, the time decay is not as important of a factor or the time decay in terms of a Facebook post, only having a few hours of life now has a bit more legs to it.So once again, as a Facebook page manager, nothing changes, you still need to be consistently creating engaging content, I think one thing that may change, and you never know what the real objective is that Facebook has, because like Google, they're never going to share the inner workings of what they're doing.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal Schaffer details how his social media accounts recently got hacked - and provides six points of advice to help you avoid the same fate.Key Highlights[01:03] What is LastPass[02:46] The Problem When I Didn't Change All of My Password[05:12] Digging Around[06:35] Twitter Being Ahead of Other Networks[07:29] Create Unique Password for Each Site[07:49] Change Your Password Regularly[08:03] Use Two-Step Verification[08:28] Audit Your Third-Party AppsNotable QuotesBut it's critical that we somehow figure out how to create a unique password for each social media site we have.Any dashboard that you have access to gives someone that gains access, the ability to post to several accounts, is a prime target for hackers.It's funny because even the email from Twitter said, make sure that you reset your password makes you look through all the third party apps, it didn't really talk about not just looking at the third party apps that have authorization, but those trusted social media dashboards and third party websites that have the ability to post to also make sure you change the passwords there.So really the message of this podcast and it's important, obviously, not only for yourself, but for your business is number one, to have a unique password for each site.It just gives you an extra layer security, make sure that you have two step verification on every single social network or social media dashboard that you're on.It's important to educate everybody on the security procedures.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Learn about Neal Schaffer's Pinterest experiment - and the data which backs up why you shouldn't be ignoring Pinterest anymore.Key Highlights[00:49] Why Pinterest Is A Fascinating Network[02:41] What Fascinates Me About Pinterest[04:33] Pinterest Statistics[05:58] The Quality Traffic You Can Get From Pinterest[06:52] What I Ended Up Doing In Pinterest[07:29] Creating Pinterest Boards[08:18] Pinterest As A Social Bookmarking Site[08:59] How Can You Begin Using Pinterest[10:23] One Thing I Did After Creating Pinterest BoardNotable QuotesPinterest is a fascinating social network because it is a relatively small social network.But Pinterest is something that demands our attention. And it's not just the website traffic that a generates. It's also a demographic that we know has been documented is primarily female.And I sort of want to share that experiment with you all to get you thinking outside of the box about Pinterest, because we all know, and I've talked about this many times that social networks evolve, and the people who use them and how we use them is always changing and the same as Pinterest.But the other thing is, it's generating a lot of website traffic, but it's the quality of the traffic that people that are going from Pinterest to another site.So Pinterest originally and one of the reasons why StumbleUpon I believe has sort of decreased in popularity is that Pinterest at the heart of it. It's a social bookmarking site. It's a social bookmarking site for visuals that you know what Pinterest is, it's that pin board visuals that you see on the internet that you want to pin to a virtual board.So you begin to see that there are different ways of using it. And at a minimum if you as an experiment, if you're not a Pinterest user, I recommend you take a look at some of those boards I've created and consider you need to use it yourself to get it right.And at the end of the day, for businesses that want to generate traffic from Pinterest, you need to have pinnable images on your own website.There's a lot of buzz and everybody likes to look at the new shiny thing and what have you. But I think at this point, with that data showing just the the incredible referral traffic that Pinterest is generating, it behooves me if you're not thinking about how to use Pinterest as part of your social media marketing, if you haven't been already, I'm hoping that this podcast sparks some ideas.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What does it mean to be an influencer in social media? Why is it important to businesses? And how can people become influencers?Key Highlights[01:43] Have A Social Scoring[03:21] What is Publicly Available Data?[04:23] The Interesting Thing About Cloud[05:56] How I Look At Social Scoring[06:39] Become the Center of Influence[07:47] Carve Your Own Path[08:58] Be Natural[10:19] Be An Influencer and Add Value[10:49] Be An UtilityNotable QuotesAnd it really comes down to, if you're a business and you want to get more amplification from your message, or you want to better segment your audience because you're bombarded with 10s Hundreds 1000s of app mentions direct messages a day, obviously, having some sort of social scoring can be very, very convenient, it can actually help the efficiency of your marketing help the efficiency of your customer service and what have you.But what it really comes down to I find, and businesses also want to become more influential, but people want to yield influence.It really comes down to yielding influence means yielding influence for the public to consume. And what are the platforms that are open to the public? On the other hand, if you've only been active on Facebook, and really haven't done much on Twitter, it really limits the potential and it makes sense because Twitter as a real time search engine is probably number two, or number three in the world only behind Google and perhaps YouTube, if it's not ahead of YouTube.But the message that I really want to give you all about influence and how to become an influencer is don't follow the influencers, don't necessarily retweet the influencers, become the center of influence become an influencer.And what you find is that your past relationships that you have in your past friends and fans, you can leverage for whatever new things you want to do on any site.And that's why a blog is a central part of any social media strategy that I create. But above and beyond the blogging, it's not only sharing your own point of view, but it's also in the type of content that you share, or curate, and who you curate, from what social signals you send, who do you engage with? But really, if you want to engage with someone that's sort of high up in the influence chain, and you want to get the right Just be natural, read their blog posts, comments, send them a tweet every once in a while retweet their content, share their content on Facebook, tagging them.And it's this sort of like, do it yourself, be inspired to do something to add value to the world and whatever passion you may have.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Before you hire an intern or call up a social media consultant, first ask yourself these 5 critical questions to give your social media for business plans a reality check.Key Highlights[01:24] My New Book -- Maximize Your Social[02:13] How I Talk To My Potential Clients[02:35] How Can I Help You With Social Media[03:22] Determining Business Objective[04:46] Perceived Benefits of Social Media[05:48] Perform A Simple Audit[06:36] How Do You Reach Your Business Objective?[07:36] The Killer QuestionNotable QuotesIn this case, the illness is either the use of social media or the perceived use of social media utilizing best practices for your company. So if you think about it that way, if you're asking someone for help, you're not going to get an answer into divulge more information.And that's how we start to derive our ROI from our activities and social media. Because we have that objective. You know, not everybody's using social media the same way. This comes down to sort of the expectations if you're going to hire someone, right? Or if you are going to invest in social media, what do you expect to get out of it? And that's a good starting point, in addition to obviously, where does it hurt? What are your business objectives?But anyway, with your social media, what do you think is working? And what do you think isn't working? So you know, this is sort of like the audit is a self-audit of you telling me how you're doing.Without understanding that because as I always say, social media doesn't exist in a silo. It just helps complement everything else you do.What is the potential benefit to you in money, and that's important? Partially, it's important from a sales perspective, to help understand how much I can charge because we call this in sales extra in the budget, but on a deeper level.If we're looking at the social media ROI, and we're looking at trying to reach a business objective, how much did we invest? How much did we get back? It comes down to okay, this is what it's worth to reach our objective.  So that really hits home, the proposition of utilizing social media for your business is no different than hiring someone for SEO for pay per click for web design, hiring an administrator hiring a new employee, hiring a new salesperson, it is exact same thing, business comes down to sale and profit, and how you invest your money to maximize your sales to help you maximize your profit.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

If you're on LinkedIn for sales, business development, or marketing, you need to realize that everything you do on LinkedIn leads back to your profile. Here's advice on how to improve upon it.Key Highlights[01:02] How To Better Leverage LinkedIn for Business?[01:39] The Second Demographic[02:41] LinkedIn Demographics[03:18] Think About What Social Media Can Do for You[03:59] It All Comes Down to Your LinkedIn Profile[05:43] Why It Is Critical to Put Time and Effort In Your Profile[06:55] Put A Professional, Well-Branded Headline[07:32] Expose Your Personal Brand In Your Profile[08:31] What to Put In Your Profile Summary[10:36] Data Points that Show the Power of LinkedInNotable QuotesBut from a b2b sales perspective, you haven't figured out how best to align it with everything else you're doing to help you find new clients or better engage with your current clients.It's not everybody. And therefore, when you think of using LinkedIn as a sales tool, you have to understand that you're not going to get access to everybody, right? It is one more tool in your toolbox. How did you get leads up until now? How did you close business up until now, if it's still effective, keep doing it. If it's not as effective as it used to be, think about what social media can do for you. And if you're already on LinkedIn and see the value, and you just want to see how to apply that value towards b2b sales. But the point I wanted to bring up today is if you want to use LinkedIn as a serious tool to help you get business now, whether it's for b2b sales, if you think of yourself as a salesperson, or maybe you're in the marketing department, or you think yourself as a marketer, and you want to get more inbound marketing leads from LinkedIn, or you want to do better that whatever you do on LinkedIn, you're more successful on LinkedIn to generate new business. It really comes down to your profile.It is your homepage on LinkedIn, because anything you do on LinkedIn, whether you're posting a status update, whether you're asking For an introduction, you're sending an InMail, you're in a group, you're looking at LinkedIn news, or you're posting a comment on a LinkedIn company update, it all comes down to your name, we're whatever you do on LinkedIn, whatever engagement you do is think back to your profile. LinkedIn is where the business decision makers are, I recommend you don't get cheesy, because I don't think those people look down favorably on cheesy things that don't want to be sold to in a professional headline. So you want to put down a professional headline that is well branded, that will get the right targeted people wanting to click through wanting to say, hey, I want to know more about this person, I want to get to know this person, don't try to make a sale, through your professional headline.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What is the value of guest blog posts on your website? Learn about the history of Windmill Networking along with advice on what type of content you should try to source for your website blog.Key Highlights[01:07] Moving From Windmill Networking to Maximize Social Business[01:29] How I Started Windmill Networking[03:43] From Personal Blog to Collaborative Blog[04:18] What I Realized with Guest Blogging[06:13] The Story of the Term Maximize Your Social[07:05] The Bigger Benefits of the Switch[07:17] My Advice[08:05] The Key Thing on ContributingNotable QuotesReally, the Concept of windmill networking came about when I was in the shower, in all honesty, and I write about this, I think in the preface of the book, of trying to find a visual concept, if we are windmills and we plug ourselves into this grid, that is social media, we can receive and share energy 24/7 worldwide, something that, you know, maybe something trivial to us could be a godsend to someone else.And that's really, you know, my base for helping businesses promote social media comes down to that concept that when you are engaging in social media as a brand, it really comes down to those people.You know, the branding from a business perspective was never any good.Blogs want to invite guests to blog so that they have access to content and people who want to move their way up in the chain, or in the blogosphere echo system want to be seen on blogs that offer bigger platforms that they have.But I realized, as I was doing this, and I've written about this, it was almost like a one night stand, people would come contribute a blog post, and that was it. It offered temporary value to my readers, but it didn't really offer any lasting value.And I realized that because of that, I needed to create a new website that really strips the brand name from my personal brand, it wasn't fair to the other contributors, that yes, they do get value from the platform, but the platform still is tied directly to my personal brand.But it's completely taking my personal brand, any potential ego that I have, out of the play, insane, subscribe to us read our content for the content. And I think it showcases more of the actual authors of each content, because if you go to share it on social media. If you have a company blog, you want to bring out the voices of those in your company, I want to have an advisor that is blogging on my site for any industry or any discipline that a potential company might have a problem in. And that's really the core concept. But I believe with Google authorship and the trends I see out there for content marketing, and Gary Vaynerchuk, now tripling down on content, although there's some debate about that, if you read what Scott Mani said, but it leads to a very, very interesting question as to At what point do you separate your personal or company brand, from that contributing content that you have curated and fostered as well as the content you have created?Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A holistic and realistic perspective on the role social media marketing can play at your business.Key Highlights[01:08] How to Get Started in Social Media?[01:57] What Social Media Can Do for Me?[02:59] Push-Pull Approach[03:12] Ways of Driving Consumer Demand[03:31] One Thing that Most Companies Forget[04:10] How Much will this Cost?[05:09] The Beautiful Thing About Social Media[05:50] Relationships Doesn't Happen Overnight[06:53] Start Small[06:59 What Immediate Results You Will SeeNotable QuotesSo the question really becomes and I asked this of all my clients, and you need to ask yourself as well, how did you go about getting leads before social media?Can social media first of all help in that process.?And obviously, if you're doing b2b sales, social media, we all know can be a great help starting with LinkedIn to try to find decision makers. And then by sharing and creating your own content to try to influence them, and is creating sort of icebreakers to start conversations with. And once you start having ecommerce, you're now selling directly to people. And when you're selling directly to people, obviously, social media can play a very, very important role.And that's one of the pieces of advice I gave the gentleman is having a strong social media program is going to have positive influence when you negotiate with these companies, not just for your own ecommerce, but also to show that you are a respected brand that has a following.It's that sort of calculation that you need at the end. The day for each type of marketing that you do on each channel to really drive the ROI home.But if you're not going to do social media, what are you going to do, it's going to cost a lot of money. The beautiful thing about social media, it's free. The problem is once you start outsourcing that social media, it's not free anymore. I like to empower social media agencies, social media consultants to help them out. But I also like to empower my direct customers, to help them do it on themselves to look for internal talent that can do it for them.But yes, if you're trying to create relationships with people you've never met, it doesn't happen overnight. Why would social media be any different, it's going to require a constant daily presence, the presence doesn't have to take a long time, it's going to require a daily presence nevertheless, and it's going to require the creating of content, right, whether it's blogs, or photos or videos. And in the future, as your brand gets well known, you may not have to develop as much of your own content, and you can be curating the content of your fans, and sharing that with your communities. The other result is, when you do that, in combination with creating more content, you're not only going to get new website visitors from social media, but you're going to start getting a lot more website visitors from Google, because the search engines will index your content. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

More companies are sharing more content in social media, but when a social media user has a conversation with your business, does your voice branding back up your content - and is it "human" enough to deepen online relationships?Key Highlights[00:52] The Notion of Having a Strong Corporate Brand[02:21] Different Forms of Content[03:30] You Need to Have A Conversation[03:52] What Should Your Blog Be[04:18] How You Engage with Your Audience Is Critical[04:46] Be Open to Anybody[05:19] The Dangerous Pitfall We Have[05:41] Back-Up Your Content With Human Side[06:49] The Best TestNotable QuotesAnd it's not just LinkedIn, but really the HR industry is talking about this notion of having a strong corporate brand, as an employer, which then will help you really recruit better talent potentially quicker. And at even a less expensive cost. But the notion of branding obviously, is popular, it's always been popular in marketing. And in social media, we hear a lot about it as well.Nevertheless is another type of content companies can put out the best looking infographics possible, and attract a lot of people to their social media profiles, and even generate new leads and attract a lot of web site traffic just through the art of relevant content and relevant social media channels.But at the end of the day, people do business with people that they like people buy products from companies that make them feel good. And there may come a point where you're providing all this content and social media. But then you need to have a conversation.What you blog about shouldn't be written in web copy like text, but more of a social voice that is representative of your company's brand and social media.But at the end of the day, it's the social media users that will determine the brand of companies, because they're only going to see limited things of what you post in social media channels, especially on a platform like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters, but even on Facebook, Google Plus what have you, companies aren't posting really long messages.It's not only your choice of words that you use, but it's also on how you engage whether you engage with people that engage with you is one thing, but how you engage with them.So you may want to be considered the thought leader in your industry, and you write the most compelling content. But when people engage with you or your company, they feel that there's a gap, because maybe you don't exhibit the same human skills that others would want to see in you. But you have to back up that content with the person with the human side with how you communicate with people in social media. It is the basic human skills. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A deep analysis of Social Media Examiner's 5th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Learn where the social media marketing market is today and what trends are in store for its future.Key Highlights[01:48] The 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report[02:54] Survey Participants Demographics[03:28] The Most Interesting Takeaway on the Report[03:50] The Fifth Most Popular Question[04:20] The Third Most Popular Question[05:03] What Worries Me[06:24] Huge Potential for Social Media Profession[06:46] Other Date Points[07:26] The Benefits of Social Media[09:27] Spending Time on Social Media[10:51] The Intangible Benefits[11:57] Start Blogging[13:15] The Other Surprising StatsNotable Quotes83% of those that are engaged in social media that were questioned, actually don't know how to create a social media strategy. It's sort of worrying that, in essence, more than 80% of marketers that are engaging in social media don't really have a strategy. And because they don't have a strategy that sort of answers these other questions.But what also worries me not only the fact that only 17% of marketers feel that social media strategy creation is not a significant issue, but that 88% don't know how to engage that they don't understand the best ways to engage with your audience. 90% don't understand the tactics.I think this is indicative of perhaps the people that are doing the social media marketing on behalf of their company, may not be as experienced in all the platforms, or maybe are relatively new, even though there were a number of people knew according to the demographics and the study, but not everybody.It's really surprising that that many people would want those questions answered, it really makes you see that a lot of the social media marketing you see out there is still at a very, I would call it an introductory stage.   Why aren't 83% of marketers spending more time in the trenches engaging with others, following others reading information, experimenting, trying to figure it out?f you're trying to create an objective and determine ROI KPIs, you know, it's either increased sales or decreased expenses, or it's going to be an intangible benefit, that's going to be very hard to calculate. And everybody looks at the increased sales, and decreased expenses, I believe that social media can be equally important.As I say, for every social media strategy that I create, a blog is always a centerpiece of that strategy. So clearly the wave of the future is that companies want to do social media themselves and avoid outsourcing.That's not surprising if social media relies on engagement, social media relies on content, on strategy on analytics, and what have you. But you also need a lot of graphics, whether they're infographics or whether you set up pages, or photos that you want to create to help your Facebook or Pinterest postings go viral, or what have you. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Neal Schaffer reveals the secret fact that businesses should know in order to leverage the potential that is Google Plus.Key Highlights[01:23] Why Do You Need A Presence On Google Plus?[01:57] Google Plus Changes to the User Interface[02:36] How Google Plus Is Different[03:19] Understanding the Importance of Google Plus[03:45] Google's Correlation With LinkedIn[05:37] The Community Fabrice of Google Plus[06:46] How to Attract Google UsersNotable QuotesWe've had social networks that are based on people, right social networks are people that have user profiles, that post user generated content. That's sort of the general definition of a social network. Google Plus is a social layer has a community a community has been developed of the social layer, but it is a social layer that ties together whether all of Googles products.And it all works together to give the content on women networking, more authority, which therefore means it gets better search rankings, and therefore, getting better search traffic.By establishing a Google Plus page, posting content linking your page with all your other digital properties through the about section on your Google Plus page, you are now creating as many touchpoints as possible, with as many Google users as possible, just like completely filling out your LinkedIn profile. In fact, the more influence you are in the community. The more signals that go back to Google as well, the more it's going to help you generate more quality touchpoints with more relevant Google users.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The importance of focus in everything you do in social media marketing: Platforms, content, and objectives. Key Highlights[00:40] Why You Need to Perform Internal R&D[01:28] FOCUS![02:00] What Focus In Social Medi Means[02:19] The Problem That Most Companies Fall Prey To[02:48] The Components of Anchor[04:12] Take Baby Steps[05:12] Take Some Withdrawals[07:04] Stay With the FocusNotable QuotesI think that anybody that is active in social media, anybody that's active in business has a need for their own internal r&d to stay ahead of their game, to network with other people, and to learn auxilary skills that can help them succeed in business and in life.The problem is, the less focus you have in social media, it truly comes down to the less you get done, right.And I like to talk about when creating a social media strategy, the need to create an anchor, okay?And there's no one right way to do it. It all comes down to not only where you want to build a community, but what you want to build a community around. So by focusing on doing one thing, well, we can ensure that we begin to implement something.If you don't implement, it's good for nothing. And instead of implementing everything, just start with one thing, take baby steps.And if you feel like you're spinning a lot of wheels, spin a lot of cycles and not getting a lot accomplished not seeing the ROI. I want you to take some withdrawals, I want you to withdrawal from maybe one platform. Or maybe if you're curating or blogging on different types of content, get back to your anchor content.And everybody that knows me, has heard me say that before, because businesses need help on all the platforms, you don't pick a platform, you align your strategy with a platform based on your objectives, right. So staying with the focus, staying crystal clear on the audience, on the platforms, the content on the objective is sort of an evergreen thing that you're always going to need to do.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Join me as I share my own usage of and reviews of popular social media dashboards while also recommending some new ones for you to explore.Key Highlights[01:13] What the Evolution of Social Media Dashboards means[02:42] Twitter Social Media Dashboard[03:15] Another Thing I Realized About TweetDeck[03:40] Moving to Hootsuite[04:03] The Problem I Am Having with Hootsuite[04:41] Exploring Social Sprout[05:30] Sprout Social's Timesaver Functionality[06:52] Viral Heat[07:01] CW Dashboard[07:40] Mediafunnel.com[07:50] Sendible[07:58] Other Tools You Can Check OutNotable QuotesAnd therefore, it's really important not only to find the one that you feel most comfortable with, both in terms of functionality as well as user interface, but also over time, the way that your company or you use social media, the way that social media evolves.And the evolution of social media dashboards means that I believe just as you should be auditing your social media on a regular basis, it almost makes sense every few months or so to take a step back. And look what else is out there.I say, you know, if I'm going to be using a dashboard like this, the data has to be accurate. And as I mentioned that once you become more and more active in social your social stream and in terms of app mentions or direct messages, it becomes an inbox right?If you haven't tried TweetDeck, Hootsuite Sprout Social marketing suite, you owe yourself a bare minimum of checking them out during the free trials and seeing what you may be missing out on. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Ian Clearly of Razor Social joins us for a look at the best social media marketing apps for social media management, monitoring, and automation.Key Highlights[00:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ian Cleary[01:22] Defining Different Categories of Apps That Social Media Marketers Can Use[02:09] Ian's Recommended Platforms[02:55] Special Features of Nimble[03:54] Monitoring Tools[05:08] Recommended Automation Tools[06:13] The Advantages of Zapier[08:17] Connect With Ian[08:32] Final ThoughtsNotable QuotesI suppose the a lot of it puts in is in the management section. So pure management tools for managing social media. And then like you say, there's the monitoring site for monitoring activity related to social media, and so on, as we talked about, then some automation tools for automating some tasks within social media could be within management or outside of management. Basically, picking the people that you want to engage with in social whether you're trying to develop new business or new partnerships. So you want to engage the quote unquote, influencers, and really using nimble as a CRM like a Salesforce to really put down your targets your you know, where they are in the pipeline. They have a different set of rules that you can apply. So there's some of the functionality is quite similar, and others is new functionality that's not provided, but I have TT. Another advantage to Zapier is that if the automation is not available, you can build that automation so you can further develop Zapier yourself. So as a business organization, you can basically do a lot more with Zapier.It's very good to pick it up content for you. And having the content ready available for you to share really quickly. So I think the future of social media marketing management tools will be on a mobile device so people will move to using on a mobile device glider is a really interesting application where it provides really nice templates that you can use and update and send out your these nice graphical images out onto Facebook and Pinterest and Twitter and everything very easily.Don't overdo the tools, we give them section tools there, pick the ones that are most relevant to your business, and get it working for one tool properly before you start adding in additional ones.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

A look at Empire Avenue from a social media marketing perspective. Does it make sense for your brand to have a presence there?Key Highlights[00:46] What Is Empire Avenue?[01:50] Why Empire Avenue Should Matter[02:59] An Example of Why Empire Avenue Is Interesting for Social Media Marketers[04:07] Is Your Target Audience on Empire Avenue?[04:51] Creating Missions[06:35] My Empire Avenue TickerNotable QuotesCompared to the 10s, or 20s, or hundreds of millions of users that other social networks have it's small, however, because it's based on social media activity, and it's really the only game out there based on social media, if you think about it, and therefore it attracts a lot of very, very active social media users. Empire Avenue is interesting for social media marketers, and that it gives you a chance to engage with people in a very, very different way than you can on other platforms.With Empire Avenue, if the person you want to engage with is a daily Empire Avenue user, it's guaranteed that that person is checking in every day. And in fact, compared to a Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus, or maybe comparable to a Facebook or Google Plus, they are checking in on a daily basis, often religiously, and I know from my own experience, and from others that I know that are active users that we are as well. So part of what a lot of social media marketers try to achieve is amplification of their content and Empire Avenue in addition to all this, giving you a new way to engage to create brand awareness and a community of very, very active social media users.Maybe your brand has a new campaign, and you want your shareholders to help amplify that campaign to their community, perhaps you have a new blog post that you would like to see more traffic on in hopes that more of these heavier social media active users will actually share that post it cetera, et cetera.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Through an experimental post, you will quickly discover the differences between the major 4 platforms and discover value in Google Plus that you might not have seen before.Key Highlights[00:49] One Big Difference Between Facebook and Google Plus[02:51] Google Plus's Different Community[03:34] Some of LinkedIn's Technical Infrastructure Issues[04:17] Why I'm Excited About Google Plus[05:51] The Difference in the Atmosphere Between Google Plus and Facebook[08:33] Google Plus is All About Status Updates[08:52] The Difference in ConversationsNotable QuotesI am going to bring in my on upon airways brand ambassador trip as well as this notion of experimentation in social media to give you a fuller and deeper description of the really unique professional community that is developing on Google Plus a community very different than LinkedIn.And over the last 12 months, I think that a lot of people have felt that their LinkedIn user experience has been well, for lack of a better word to has taken a turn for the worse, whether it's the introduction of new features, getting new emails that they didn't end up subscribing for, or didn't originally subscribe for, or just the never ending spam, the never ending self promotion that we see.The addition of being able to do that within Gmail for us Google Mail is what really sets Google Plus apart. Also just firm control. If you see spam and a comment, it's very easy to report that person. You can also easily moderate communities and what have you.But the reason why I'm really excited about Google Plus as a professional networking platform that someday may surpass LinkedIn is the nature of the people and the nature of the conversation.I always talk about the need for never ending experimentation in social media because it's always changing. It just goes to show you just the different types of people that different relationships that we find the different platforms.I think there's no better way through this experiment to show you the gap in the conversation some of the people I mean, there's definitely still some overlap of people between Facebook and Google Plus, but you will see that Google Plus has just turned into a much more professional network.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Now that you have a robust social media marketing program running in your own country, what about the rest of the world?Key Highlights[00:41] Social Media Is A Lot More Global Than You Think[01:40] Looking At Some Statistics..[03:20] Should US Be In Charge of Every Global Channel?[05:03] Sharing of Best Practices Between Regions[05:30] The Challenge for Smaller Brands[05:46] The Challenge for Bigger BrandsNotable QuotesSocial media is a lot more global than you may think. And for people, it's great the ability to really meet and communicate and learn from people around the world. But from businesses, it also has a lot of implications that I think most businesses still have not realized.So obviously, when you think globally, not every platform is going to be relevant. But Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are three platforms that are relevant. But it's not just about traditional marketers wanted to keep control. And that's been one of the challenges that they have with social media and giving up control and finding value and giving up control of certain things while maintaining control in different ways.Most companies up until now are either completely hand off you know let each region do it themselves or they are very much want to keep in control like traditional marketing and I don't have enough experience with enough Global Fortune five hundreds to be able to give you a concise answer.There's a lot of issues, it may not be important for smaller brands, but obviously smaller brands have the ability to reach out to the entire world.  And if they've been limited to business only in their native country, they now have the ability to really create a global awareness for the product.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What is the best away to avoid a social media crisis? Listen to Neal Schaffer's advice and, instead of dwelling on the negative, focus on the positive by generating goodwill and brand advocates through growing a social media following.Key Highlights[00:26] Social Media and Crisis Management[01:10] Examples of Social Media Crises[01:30] What to Do When Faced With Crisis?[02:54] The Best Way to Prevent Crisis[04:24] Another Way to Deal With Crisis[05:53] Preventing Potential Social Media Crisis by Building Goodwill[06:59] The Mission of MarketingNotable QuotesI think that social media crises are the reason that a lot of companies actually started engaging in social media in the first place.And I think for every crisis that becomes public, there are a number of crises that have been diffused, because companies have handled them in a very, very efficient and swift way.The best way to prevent crises which you're never going to be able to prevent every single crisis that happens, because you cannot control the uncontrollable, you cannot predict the future.It's about proactively engaging and building up a social media following it's building up trust with the public through social media engagement on those channels, where the public is, but most importantly, where your audiences where your customers, your partners, your vendors, and your employees are.And proactively building goodwill fostering goodwill, because if you have that goodwill, and if you foster the creation of brand advocates, what's going to happen is if there's a crisis, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to stand up for you and it will help I don't know about completely diffused this quote unquote, crisis, but it will definitely help a lot of people on social media come to your site without you even having to say anything.So if you're actively engaged in and actively monitoring and you're on the frontline, and you see something weird going on, it's a potential emergency situation, you have to be in contact with an emergency team. I'm a believer that there's always going to be negative people out there. But I also believe that people just want to know that their issues are being heard. And that's why consumers feel empowered with the advent of social media, listening and responding. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

What makes a BAD social media strategy? Here I outline 5 key components that you should avoid in planning your own social media marketing strategy. Key Highlights[01:04] Is There A Way to Write A Social Media Strategy?[01:53] 5 Ways of Looking A Good or Bad Strategy[02:24] Why Having An Objective Is Important[03:30] Campaign-Based Approach[04:47] Social Media As A Two-Way Communication Channel[06:20] Wrong Choice of Channel[07:16] The ROINotable QuotesAnd when I talk about an objective, obviously, strategy or planning starts with an objective, the objective should be a business objective. Social media does not exist in a silo.Social media must map into everything else you do as a business that really starts with your objective in your social media strategy.A good social media strategy will have an absolutely clearly defined objective, or group of objectives. And as social media permeates every single department in a company or large enterprise, I expect that the use of social media is going to have multiple objectives. We all know that social media is a long term objective. It's like having a website, it becomes part of your infrastructure. So if you're only thinking the short term, there was a great quote, social media is a commitment, not a campaign.Social media was made for people, right, it wasn't made for companies. So as a company as a brand, you are at a distinct disadvantage.It's not a matter of what site has more users. It's about engaging where your target audience is, it's being where your market is.What companies that have really bad social media strategies have is they either have no metric to determine their ROI. They don't know if there's any ROI, or they use a metric that's not business related.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Move beyond the semantic differences of content marketing and inbound marketing and learn about the central role that content will play in your social media marketing.Key Highlights[00:27] The Role of Content In Social Media Marketing[02:19] Forms of Content[03:37] Content Vs Inbound Marketing[04:08] Content As One of Key Drivers[04:28] The Best Way to Be Effective in Social Media Marketing[05:09] My View in Content[06:06] Always Provide Information to Your CustomersNotable QuotesBut visa vie social media, social media was made for people. So as brands, as companies, as institutions and organizations, you need to have conversations with people don't you. And depending on what your objective is, or obviously what your target demographic is, who the stakeholders are out there in the public content is one way in which you engage.And while some of that content may be directly related to your products and services in your company, sometimes that content is curated from third party sources. Sometimes that content is just for the sake of engagement. And through engagement, we increase our EdgeRank we deepen our relationship with the community and our followers, what have you. So content is really used across a lot of different levels and social media and content marketing. Although it has the word marketing behind it is really the use of content to help your customers and potential customers from you know, every single way through the marketing funnel, from, you know, creating awareness for your company, all the way to providing content as a service to your current customers to help support them. From my perspective, you know, content is sort of one of the key drivers of what businesses do and social media, because that's how you engage. That's how you share. That's how you communicate in one way or another through content. Whether you want to use content marketing, whether you want to use inbound marketing, just knowing that the use of content is going to be critical to your social media marketing, which is another reason why the best way to be effective in social media marketing is to be able to provide that content in house.From a b2b perspective, that buyers prospective buyers base their decisions on information.And that content, that resource for information that I could provide them whether it was based on my own company's new products or services, how our clients were using them or industry information. That was the key to my engagement with that customer and building a deeper relationship, which at the end of the day lead to more trust, and more business for me and my company. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Is there a need for a social media marketing MBA? Let me describe to you my conceptual approach to social media education - and why there is an ever-growing need for a social media marketing or even socal business MBA.Key Highlights[00:22] The Concept of Social Media MBA[00:54] The First Thing People Tell Me[02:02] The Core Concepts That Are Not Platform Dependent[03:12] The Notion of Insourcing Your PR[04:00] The Relevance of Insourcing Blog Content[05:19] How You Can Best Leverage Social Media[05:43] Is There A Need for Social Media MBA?Notable QuotesIt's not rocket science. If you work enough, with the platform's you're pretty internet savvy, you can figure out a lot of the stuff yourself true. Taking these classes can give you a quicker time to market. You may learn a few tips and tricks, but it doesn't come down to the mechanics of the car, it comes down to where you can drive that car would probably be the best way to put it. And it comes down to concepts that you can use, you know, the module that I teach is called social media platforms or applied social media. Obviously, social media is here to stay. And it's about the concepts of how you exploit the opportunity at hand for your business, and really, you know, maximizing social business. And I really love that term, because the employees that accompany are your biggest brand advocates that companies usually forget about in their social media.And when you think of the need to create content, and to have people actually engage with others in social media, the immediate knee jerk reaction for a lot of companies is to immediately go the agency route, I obviously think it's going to be much more effective if you INSOURCE in sourcing employees who maybe can share the burden in sourcing employees who can create great content for your blog, or who can shoot videos when they're out in the field?Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Stop outsourcing your social media to consultants and agencies who put a black box around your social media. Instead, start thinking of ways to own your social media strategy and insource your social media activities.Key Highlights[00:43] Fire Your Social Media Consultant[01:24] The Problem With Outsourcing Resources[02:50] Are You Blindly Throwing Money Away?[04:00] Own Your Strategy[04:53] Understand The Basics[06:11] Do You Really Need A Social Media Consultant?[06:52] Think Twice And Ask Yourself QuestionsNotable QuotesI took a course very, very early in my career, and I talked about this in an earlier podcast, of actually not implementing social media on behalf of other companies, because I truly believe that it is something that should be done by that company, if they really want to get the most effective use of social media, it really is a no brainer. But the problem is 99% of the businesses that I talk with, if they're outsourcing it, whether it be an agency or consultant, or what have you, there are not doing it with the right people. If you're going to outsource, you need to be able to manage them by one owning the strategy. And in terms of owning the strategy, you need to educate yourself on social media. If you don't understand the basics, you're not gonna be able to cre ate a strategy and you're not going to be able to manage these external resources. Social media is not rocket science. It's teachable. And if you have good obviously business acumen, you can learn social media and become very proficient at it, it doesn't need to be a full time job either. So the title of this episode is fire your social media consultant, because most of them are not teaching you anything. It's a black box. And they hold the power by not teaching you because the more you know, the more you realize you may not need their services, because most of them are doing very, very basic thing. Really think twice. And ask yourself some serious questions if you're hiring someone or outsourcing your current social media. If not, I hope you're successful in sourcing if you haven't, now's the time to start. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Google Plus is a critical social network that every business should be on, but many discount it. Why? Find out why - and how you can help your company better leverage G+.Key Highlights[00:53] Should You Care About Google Plus?[02:29] Open Networking[03:31] The Influence of Our Circles[04:02] The Power of Google Search Results[06:11] Google Plus Is An Active Community[06:37] Establish Your Google Plus Presence NowNotable Quotes From a personal perspective, it's one thing you know, when I wrote my first book on LinkedIn, and I talked about Open Networking, and Twitter being an open platform, in essence, where you can communicate with anyone in the world you want whether or not they communicate back with you as another story, but it's a great place to start new relationships. So in that way, our circles are greatly influencing our search results in Google, we all know the power of Google just cannot be underestimated.If you were just to have conversations on Google Plus, and they were being prioritized in Google Search, and the bigger of a community of a relevant community that you can build for your business, the more those conversations that obviously should be relevant to your business are going to show up in Google. It's really a no brainer. But you know, obviously, when you're in business, a lot of businesses just want to get brand recognition or brand awareness begin to create communities find influencers find content to share, no matter what it is.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Social Business: A New Definition. Let me explain my perspective on the evolution from social media as an independent form of media to how it might impact your business, and thus what social business means to your company.Key Highlights[00:23] Social Business Defined[01:12] The Traditional Definition of Social Business[01:43] My Definition of Social Business[02:00] How I Began My Social Business[02:43] What I Provide Companies That Need To Be Consulted[04:04] One of My First Clients[04:34] My AHA Moment[06:07] Think Outside The BoxNotable QuotesIn essence, I realized that companies needed to be consulted, and I needed to provide them the following two things. Number one is strategy, and number two is education.Education really starts at the top with the executive team and working our way down, I needed to make sure that my clients were up to speed as quickly as possible as to what was possible on social media. What were the best practices? In other words, how can I best replicate my knowledge and really give them a customized brain dump for their own situation?At the end of the day, what are the sales, what's the profit, but in addition to sales, you got to do the marketing, you got to hire people, customer service, legal issues, administrative issues, it all falls on your responsibility. And that is the experience that if you really want to be a social business consultant, that's the experience you need. And the reason is, as social media permeates industry, it also permeates corporate discipline. What I would add to the definition is social media began as really an outbound focus, either by marketing and or public relations, to engage with others. But it was primarily a one way broadcast. And we all know that social media is to a communication. The more engagement that brands and businesses do with social media users, the more feedback they get. And now I would say my definition of social business would be it's not just the outbound, and it's not just receiving the feedback, but it's actually the input of that feedback into everything your business does. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Does Facebook Graph Search matter to your business in the here and now? A look at the importance of sticking to present technology in your social media strategy.Key Highlights[00:22] Social Media Here And Now[01:30] The Facebook Graph Search[01:43] How Facebook Graph Search Can Affect How We Use Facebook[02:29] The 2 Things Facebook Graph Search Hinges On[03:08] The Question On Data[03:40] My Advice on Maximizing Social Media Presence[04:49] Understanding The Need for a Historical Perspective[05:39] Try To Avoid The NoiseNotable QuotesFrom an inbound perspective, there is the potential that the more likes we have on our business page, from relevance consumers or potential clients, and the more engagement that we have from them, the higher that's our company, or more prominent that our company will appear and more search results.On the other hand, from an outbound perspective, we can now use the search engine potentially, if it is implemented the way they say it will be to find out more information, more data about our competitors, about our fans.If you want to show up in more search results, you need to have more fans, you need to be more engaging, and therefore you need to be doing what you should be doing on Facebook from day one. In other words, if you want to leverage the future of Facebook, you need to be leveraging the here and now. And instead of trying to predict the future, is there more that you could be maximizing about your social media presence in the here and now.You stay the course until this new functionality comes out until you start to use it and really understand it, you see how others use it. And slowly, you will get a much better intuitive feel as to how you should be using it for your organization.So all of this is a combination of doing implementing your social media in the here and now but also an understanding that there is a need for historical perspective to understand And what all these changes might mean when they get rolled out how they get rolled out, and how people end up using them.So instead of being confused by everything that's out there, really try to avoid the noise and get back to the basics and stick to your social media strategy, which hopefully you have a written document if you read my top 10 tips to optimize your social media audit your social media strategy for 2013 blog post on women on networking.Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Welcome to the first episode of my podcast! This will tell you why I launched my podcast, which at the inception was called the Social Business Unplugged podcast. I also want to share with you how a podcast can feed into an inbound marketing strategy.Key Highlights[00:31] Why Social Business Unplug?[01:02] The Idea of Podcast[02:14] You Can't Do The Same Thing Everywhere Else[03:04] The Idea About My Podcast[06:14] Knowledge Is Power[07:48] It's Always About Becoming Your End CustomerNotable QuotesYou know, the idea of a podcast, there are many, many different ways to speak to people to, for lack of a better word, engage with people, there is video, you have YouTube videos, there's text, you have blog posts, you have books, if you think of content marketing, and all the different ways of providing content, all the different formats, audio is a pretty strong format.And my advice always comes down to, you can't just do the same thing on Facebook, you do everywhere else, you have to have some sort of exclusivity, some sort of uniqueness, a differentiator that says, I want to like your Facebook page, I want to come back to your Facebook page, because you're doing something special on there.Over time, the older generation or the people, you know, in the executive and management level, get out of touch out of tune with what their end customers really think about their products and services, what have you. And therefore, by enlisting this Gen Y group, they were trying to use them to actually better feed in the customers voice to the executive team, which is pretty fascinating perspective.People that sort of hold on to their knowledge, have nothing to gain from it, because it's an open market for knowledge right now. And that really stuck with me. At the end of the day, your blog is not for self promotion, it's for you sharing resourceful content that's going to create the magnet that's going to bring people back to your blog back to your website to create a trustworthy relationship that's going to lead them to become a buyer of your product or service, whether it's a blog, a video, a podcast, if you're not providing that information, if you're not sharing it with them, your blog post has very, very little value. So whether it's blogging or anything else, it's always about becoming your end customer, understanding what they're looking for and providing them the information.It's less about becoming more resourceful and more about becoming fun or engaging or sharing tidbits about your customers. And it's less about your own content and more about repurposing the content of your customers and your fans. Learn More: Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/ Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com